Saudi Arabia’s Oil Lifeline Just Went Down. The World May Be Running Out Of Time

Saudi Arabia could run out of oil available for export within days after an attack shut down a critical pipeline used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

The kingdom has enough crude stored at the Red Sea port of Yanbu to maintain current export levels for roughly five to seven days without new supplies flowing through its East-West Pipeline, Reuters reported Sunday citing Saudi oil buyers and traders. If the pipeline remains offline, the world risks losing as much as 4% of its oil supply.

“This is a big outage for the Kingdom, and the damage to its East-West Pipeline appears much more severe than the relatively minor hit it took in April. Saudi storage farms in Egypt can fill in for the pipeline’s lost flows for perhaps a week, but a lingering shutdown beyond that would short global supply by about 4 million barrels per day,” energy public policy analyst David Blackmon told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Crude prices jumped 3% in overnight trading on the news, and U.S. gasoline prices will follow in the coming days. This incident, combined with lingering problems at the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, is likely to force gas prices at the pump even higher until they are favorably resolved,” Blackmon added.

The nearly 750-mile East-West Pipeline — owned by state-controlled oil company Saudi Aramco — was moving roughly four million barrels of crude per day toward Yanbu before an attack forced it offline, according to Reuters. Industry estimates for restoring the pipeline vary, with some sources telling the outlet repairs could take five to six weeks while others expect partial operations to resume sooner.

The potential loss comes as the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that the Iran war and prolonged disruptions to Persian Gulf energy flows are creating an increasingly tight global oil market.

Global oil supply is projected to fall by 5.7 million barrels per day in 2026, or roughly 6%, Reuters reported Friday, citing the IEA’s September Oil Market Report. The agency previously projected a smaller decline as it expected normal Middle Eastern oil flows to return sooner.

Saudi Arabia has taken a particularly significant hit, with crude supply falling by 2.3 million barrels per day in August to roughly six million barrels per day, its lowest level in more than three decades, according to Reuters.

The supply squeeze is also draining the world’s oil reserves as inventories make up for missing production. Global oil stocks fell by roughly 3.1 million barrels per day in August to their lowest level since 2023, the outlet reported Friday.