Saudi Arabia has temporarily shut a 1,200-kilometre pipeline recently carrying as much as five million barrels of oil daily, just as a Houthi territorial advance places its alternative Red Sea shipping route beside Africa under greater pressure.
The East-West pipeline transports crude from Saudi Arabia’s eastern oilfields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, allowing the kingdom to avoid the disrupted Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry confirmed that it closed the pipeline as a precaution after drone attacks struck the kingdom on 10 September, Reuters reported.
The Financial Times reported that the government had not announced when operations would resume.
Although the pipeline lies entirely inside Saudi Arabia, the implications extend directly to Africa because Yanbu’s two escape routes depend on African geography.
