1. What the East-West Pipeline is, in one paragraph
The East-West Pipeline, also called the Petroline, is a roughly 1,200 kilometer (746 mile) crude oil pipeline that carries Saudi oil from the Abqaiq hub in the Eastern Province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, so it can be exported without transiting the Strait of Hormuz. It was built with about 5 million barrels a day of capacity as of 2018, and Saudi Aramco said in August 2019 it planned to raise that toward 7 million barrels a day (Argaam, August 2019); dpa reported on 12 September 2026 that the line can carry "up to seven million barrels a day." In practice it has recently moved 4 to 5 million barrels a day, roughly 4 to 5 percent of global oil supply, according to Al Jazeera on 12 September 2026.
The pipeline matters most as insurance against exactly the kind of disruption playing out at the Strait of Hormuz in September 2026, where both shores and the islands inside the strait have been under Houthi control since 11 September 2026 and tanker traffic has fallen sharply, though no authority has declared the strait formally closed.
2. The route: Abqaiq to Yanbu
The Petroline starts at Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia's central oil processing and stabilization hub in the Eastern Province, and runs roughly 1,200 kilometer (746 mile)s west to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, where crude is loaded onto tankers or fed into refineries. That routing is the entire point: oil that enters the pipeline at Abqaiq never has to travel by sea through the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or the Gulf of Oman to reach open water. It exits directly onto the Red Sea, from which tankers can reach the Suez Canal, the Bab el-Mandeb strait, or sail around Africa.
Yanbu is also a refining and petrochemical center in its own right, so not every barrel that arrives there is exported as crude; some is processed locally into refined products before leaving Saudi Arabia. Either way, the crude has already bypassed Hormuz by the time it reaches the Red Sea coast.
3. Why a Hormuz bypass exists at all
The Strait of Hormuz is the world's single largest oil chokepoint, and Saudi Arabia built the Petroline decades ago precisely so that a large share of its exports would not depend on that one passage staying open. Roughly 20.9 million barrels a day moved through Hormuz in the first half of 2025, according to the US Energy Information Administration, dwarfing the volumes that move through alternative routes such as the Petroline or the Bab el-Mandeb strait covered in our Hormuz strait glossary entry.
That scale is also why a pipeline bypass can only ever absorb part of a Hormuz disruption. At its recent flow of 4 to 5 million barrels a day, the Petroline carries a fraction of what normally transits Hormuz, so it reduces but does not eliminate Saudi Arabia's exposure to a Hormuz closure or slowdown. It is a release valve, not a full substitute.
4. Other Hormuz bypass routes
The Petroline is not the only pipeline built to move Gulf oil around the Strait of Hormuz, though it is by far the largest. The United Arab Emirates operates the ADCOP pipeline, running from Habshan to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman coast, with a capacity of 1.5 million barrels a day, according to the EIA's 17 August 2012 assessment. Fujairah sits outside the strait entirely, so oil loaded there for export never has to pass through Hormuz.
The same 2012 EIA assessment noted that the Petroline's spare, unused capacity at that time was about 2.8 million barrels a day, meaning the pipeline was running well below its design capacity and could, in theory, absorb more oil if a Hormuz disruption forced shippers to reroute.
| Bypass route | Capacity | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| East-West Pipeline (Petroline), Abqaiq to Yanbu | 5 million b/d (2018), expansion toward 7 million b/d announced August 2019 | Argaam, August 2019; EIA figures compiled in FAKTEN_W5 |
| ADCOP, Habshan to Fujairah | 1.5 million b/d | EIA, 17 August 2012 |
| Petroline spare capacity (historical) | 2.8 million b/d unused | EIA, 17 August 2012 |
| Petroline, recent actual flow | 4 to 5 million b/d, about 4 to 5% of global supply | Al Jazeera, 12 September 2026 |
5. A bypass is only as good as its own vulnerability
Running overland instead of through a strait removes one kind of risk, naval interdiction at sea, but a fixed pipeline on land is itself a target. On 11 September 2026 the Petroline was hit by several drones in the Riyadh and Medina areas. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said the pipeline "was targeted in the Riyadh and Medina areas by several drones originating from Iraq, resulting in injuries and material damage" (Al Jazeera, 11 September 2026). Saudi Arabia's energy ministry described the shutdown that followed as "stopped as a precaution," confirming injuries without giving a number (Al Jazeera, 12 September 2026). No group claimed the attack; an Iraq-based group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied involvement, and Iraq's government dismissed the commander of operations in Maysan province (Al Jazeera, 11 and 12 September 2026). This page does not speculate about who carried out the attack beyond what these sources state.
The line has been hit before. On 10 April 2026, strikes hit the pipeline in the Eastern Province, in Riyadh, and in Yanbu; a hit on a pump station cut throughput by about 700,000 barrels a day, and combined with strikes on the Manifa and Khurais fields, roughly 300,000 barrels a day each, total Saudi output fell by around 600,000 barrels a day, with one death and seven injuries reported (Malay Mail, 10 April 2026). In May 2019, a Houthi drone attack struck the Afif pump station on the same line. Across 2019, April 2026, and September 2026, a route built to avoid a chokepoint at sea has kept running into chokepoints on land. See our strategic reserve glossary entry on how reserves are meant to cushion this kind of interruption.
6. What it means when Hormuz and the bypass are both disrupted
When the main chokepoint and its main bypass are both under pressure at once, the market has fewer ways to route around either problem, part of why oil prices moved sharply around 11 and 12 September 2026. Brent crude closed at $103.98 a barrel on 11 September 2026 (Trading Economics), while Fortune reported $105.82 a barrel that same morning and $105.20 a barrel the day before, on 10 September 2026; dpa reported that the November contract touched nearly $110 a barrel overnight into Friday, 11 to 12 September 2026. Taken together, sources place Brent from just under $104 to nearly $110 a barrel across 10 to 12 September 2026. A month earlier, on 11 August 2026, Brent stood at $90.64 a barrel (Fortune, 11 September 2026).
dpa reported on 12 September 2026 that analysts see prices reaching $120 a barrel if the escalation continues; this is a scenario cited by dpa's sources, not a forecast made by this page, and it depends on how the situation at both the Strait of Hormuz and the Petroline develops from here. Our Hormuz crisis fuel prices hub and our Red Sea crisis fuel prices page track the fuller set of numbers behind these moves, including tanker traffic and downstream fuel prices.
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