Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq: Will 3 pipelines aid oil out of the Strait of Ormuz?

This week, erstwhile the United States' war against Israel enters into the 4th week, force on oil and gas markets is steadily expanding due to serious ship traffic disruptions by the Ormuz Strait, as well as attacks on and around key power facilities in the Persian Gulf.

In peace, 20 percent of planet oil and gas production is transported from Gulf producers through the Strait of Ormuz – the only way to the open ocean – including 20 million barrels of oil per day.

To address the shortages caused by its closure, the mediate East countries are looking for alternate energy export routes.

In this article, we explain the 3 main pipelines in the mediate East with which producers can make their hopes, and we wonder if they can fill the gap.

What happened in the Strait of Ormuz?

2 March – 2 days after the attacks on Iran by the US and Israel – Ebrahim Jabaari, elder advisor to the commander of the Iranian muslim Revolutionary defender Corps (IRGC), announced that the Strait had been "closed". He added that if any ships tried to sail through it, the IRGC and the Navy would "burn these ships". Since then, traffic through the Strait has fallen by over 95 percent.

Iranian officials have late declared that the strait is not completely closed—except for ships belonging to the US, Israel and those who cooperate with them—but have besides established fresh rules. Each vessel must get Tehran's consent to transit through a narrow waterway.

As a result, in the last 2 weeks, countries have sought to enter into agreements with Iran to guarantee safe movement, and respective tankers, mainly flying the flag of India, Pakistan and China, have been given approval to sail.

On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim thanked Tehran for giving Malaysian vessels a "earlier permit" to cross the strait.

In the meantime, any 2,000 ships flying under the flags of another states were stuck on both sides of the strait.

Which oil pipelines could service as alternate routes?

The only alternate to oil transport is to send it by land or sea pipelines. 3 oil pipelines could supply roads around the Strait of Ormuz, including:

East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia

The East-West pipeline, besides known as Petroline, is served by the Saudi oil giant Aramco. Aramco is 1 of the largest companies in the world, with marketplace capitalization exceeding $1.7 trillion and yearly gross of $480 billion. An oil giant controls 12 percent of global oil production, and its productivity exceeds 12 million barrels a day.

It is simply a 1,200 km (745 mi) pipeline that runs from the oil processing center Abqaiq close the Persian Gulf in Saudi Arabia to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, across the country.

However, the pipeline has no capacity to full compensate for the closure of the Ormuz Strait.

According to United Nations data, in 2024 about 20 million barrels per day (bpd) flowed through the Strait of Ormuz. Oil and condensate accounted for 14 million bpd of this amount and oil accounted for the remaining 6 million bpd.

The East-West pipeline has a capacity of up to 7 million bpd. On March 10, Aramco reported that about 5 million bpd could be exported and the remainder could supply local refineries.

Since the outbreak of the war between the United States and Israel and Iran in late February, Saudi Arabia has increased the flow of oil with this pipeline. According to Kpler, a data and data analysis company, in January and February the pipeline flowed an average of 770,000 barrels a day. By Tuesday this week, this value had increased to 2.9 million barrels a day.

However, the usage of the Saudi pipeline remains risky.

Huti, a Yemeni armed group supported by Iran, whose attacks on ships in the Red Sea caused global chaos in shipping during Israel's genocide war in the Gaza Strip from 2023 to 2025, could attack the Bab al-Mandab Strait, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, as well as the Indian Ocean.

An anonymous leader of Huti told the agency Reuters that Huti were ready to re-attack the Red Sea as part of solidarity with Tehran, informed the agency on Thursday.

"We are full prepared militarily, considering all options. erstwhile it comes to another details related to setting zero hours, we leave them to the command, and we monitor and follow developments to know erstwhile it will be the right time to act," said Huti leader.

Bab al-Mandab is the confederate estuary of the Red Sea, located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea on the coast of Africa.

It is 1 of the world's most crucial maritime routes for the global transport of goods, in peculiar oil and fuel from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal or the SUMED pipeline on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, as well as goods destined for Asia, including Russian oil.

Bab al-Mandab is 29 km (18 mi) wide in the narrowest place, limiting traffic to 2 channels for incoming and outgoing shipments.

Iran can open a fresh front in the Bab al-Mandab Strait if there are attacks on Iran's territory or its island," informed Iranian news agency Tasnim on Wednesday, quoting an anonymous Iranian military source.

Abu Dhabi pipeline in United arabian Emirates

Abu Dhabi pipeline is also called ADCOP or the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline.

The 380-kilometre-long pipeline runs from Habshan, oil and gas deposits in the southwest of Abu Dhabi, United arabian Emirates, to the port of Fujihra in the Oman Gulf.

The pipeline, which was commissioned in 2012, has a capacity of about 1.5 million barrels a day (bpd). It is unclear how much oil is presently transported by pipeline.

However, exports of Fujira oil appear to increase over the last month, despite the closure of the strait, reaching an average of 1,62 million barrels a day in March compared to 1.17 million barrels a day in February, according to analyst Kpler, Johannes Raubball, who spoke to the Reuters agency.

Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline

Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline, also called Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, connect Iraq to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The 1.6 million barrels a day pipeline now sends about 200,000 barrels a day.

Iraq is 1 of the 5 largest oil producers in the planet and the second largest in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), exceeding 4 million barrels per day.

Can these pipelines replace the Ormuz Strait?

Nope. Although these pipelines can take over part of the capacity of the Ormuz Strait, their full capacity is just about 9 million barrels a day, compared to about 20 million barrels a day in the Strait.

Moreover, these pipelines are land-based and are within scope of Iranian missiles and drones, making them as susceptible to attacks and harm in the ongoing conflict as ships flowing through the strait. During the war, energy infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf was the mark of the attacks.

Are there another options?

Theoretically oil can be transported in trucks, but it is expensive, slow and inefficient.

A standard truck can carry between 100 and 700 barrels a day, depending on the number of courses. To meet demand, hundreds of thousands of barrels would be needed, requiring thousands of trucks that could besides be attacked.

Written by Sarah Shamim

for: Saudi, UAE, Iraq: Can 3 pipelines aid oil escape Strait of Hormuz?

(choice and crowd. PZ)