How Much Damage Did the Strikes Cause to Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline?

On 10 September 2026, a coordinated drone attack struck several pumping stations on Saudi Aramco's East-West crude oil pipeline, the most important route the kingdom has used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the US-Iran war. Fires broke out at multiple sites in the Riyadh and Medina regions, and on 11 September Saudi Arabia shut down the entire system as a precaution. As of 19 September, the pipeline is still offline, Red Sea loadings at Yanbu have been disrupted and Aramco has cancelled October crude deliveries to its European customers.

The East-West pipeline, also known as the Petroline, was built in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq war precisely to give Saudi Arabia an export outlet that avoids the Gulf. It runs about 1,200 km from the Abqaiq processing hub near the eastern coast to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. The system is made of two parallel large-diameter lines of 56 and 48 inches, and its total capacity reaches around 7 million barrels per day, of which roughly 2 million barrels per day normally supply domestic refineries. Before the attack, it was carrying between 4 and 5 million barrels per day, equivalent to about 4 to 5 percent of global oil supply.

The route crosses the width of the Arabian Peninsula and does not run on flat ground. From Abqaiq, close to sea level, the line climbs across the Najd plateau and then into the western highlands, cresting at more than 1,000 metres before dropping steeply toward the Red Sea coast. This is why the pipeline relies on a chain of 11 pumping stations, which keep the crude moving over long distances and push it up the successive rises in terrain, along with two pressure relief stations that control the flow on the descent toward Yanbu. The heaviest pumping effort is concentrated on the western climb, where the crude has to be lifted to the highest point of the route.

US officials first reported on 10 September that projectiles had hit the pipeline system. Satellite fire detection data picked up several large fires along the corridor that day, and European satellite imagery showed a thick plume of black smoke rising south of Medina. The following day, Saudi Arabia confirmed that drones had struck the line in the Riyadh and Medina areas, causing injuries and damage, and the energy ministry announced a temporary shutdown while technical teams secured the installations and assessed their safety.

Saudi officials said the drones were launched from Iraq, and the office of the Iraqi prime minister stated that the attack originated in the southeastern province of Maysan. Baghdad removed the regional military commander from his post as it tried to contain the diplomatic fallout. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of Iran-aligned armed factions, denied any involvement, and no group has formally claimed the strike. US President Donald Trump said Iran was probably behind it, while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright blamed Iran-backed proxy groups.

The damage assessment has grown worse over the past week. On 16 September, oil and security sources told Reuters that pumping stations No. 8 and No. 9 had been damaged. One day later, a revised assessment based on satellite imagery and industry sources raised the count to three stations. Images released on 13 September showed a station near al-Mesabaah, southeast of Medina, with its process area heavily blackened by fire and crude oil spilled across the surrounding desert beyond the perimeter fence.

Several analysts have pointed out that the choice of targets was far from random. According to an analysis published by AJ Signal, a geopolitical analyst who says he has worked in Saudi and Middle Eastern desert projects, the three stations that were destroyed, PS-8, PS-9 and PS-11, all sit on the western climb of the route at roughly 1,020 to 1,080 metres above sea level, while the stations located on the flatter eastern section were left untouched. By disabling several consecutive stations on the steepest part of the line, the attackers removed the pumping power needed to lift crude over the crest, which limits the ability of the remaining stations to compensate and effectively takes hundreds of kilometres of flow capacity out of service.

The remoteness of these sites adds another layer of difficulty. Some stations along the Petroline are located deep in the desert, far from main roads, and depend partly on small airstrips to bring in crews and equipment. Analysts note that this was a far more damaging operation than earlier strikes on the same pipeline. In May 2019, a Houthi drone attack on stations near Dawadmi and Afif caused only minor damage and a brief shutdown. In April 2026, a strike on a pumping station reduced throughput by about 700,000 barrels per day, but Saudi Arabia restored full capacity within three days.

The pressure on Yanbu, the western end of the line, has intensified at the same time. The Houthis, who declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in July and recently seized Yemen's Red Sea coast and Perim island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, claimed on 16 September that they had fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Aramco facilities in Yanbu, causing large fires. The claim has not been independently verified. Aramco has suspended loadings from the Red Sea port, where inventories had already fallen from around 21 million barrels in July to below 15 million barrels, a buffer that industry sources estimated at only five to seven days of exports without pipeline supply.

Aramco is now trying to route crude around the damaged section so that about half of the pipeline's capacity can return within days, with full capacity targeted in about six weeks, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. Reuters sources gave a similar range of five to six weeks for a complete repair. Chris Wright described the outage as a brief interruption measured in days, but other experts are far more cautious. Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said the satellite pictures suggest repairs could take months.

AJ Signal also argued on X that a station hit by ballistic missiles or heavy drone strikes usually has to be cleared and rebuilt from the foundations, often with newer equipment because the original parts of decades-old installations are no longer made. He expects one to three months of work at best, pointing to extreme September heat that restricts work to night shifts, a heavily foreign skilled workforce that must be brought back, and the blockage of sea routes through Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, which forces heavy equipment to be airlifted, sometimes in pieces. He also warned that a rebuilt station remains exposed to new strikes as long as the war continues.

The outage has hit an oil market that was already tight. Brent crude climbed to about $108 per barrel on 14 September, after gaining more than 20 percent over the previous month, before easing to around $102 to $104 by 18 September on hopes of a partial restart. Kpler estimated that a one-month closure would remove about 120 million barrels from the market. In Asia, futures on the Shanghai exchange reached a record of $138 per barrel, and chartering a very large crude carrier in the Gulf now costs $30 to $32 per barrel before war risk insurance.

The consequences are now reaching customers directly. Aramco has informed its European term buyers that they will receive no Saudi crude in October. These volumes usually reach Europe through Egypt's Sidi Kerir terminal on the Mediterranean, and OECD Europe imported about 577,000 barrels per day of Saudi crude in June. Poland's Orlen has launched more than ten tenders and bought North Sea grades to replace the missing barrels. To limit losses, Aramco has increased exports from the Gulf through ship-to-ship transfers off Sohar in Oman and has sold additional cargoes to Asian refiners for collection just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

The attack comes as Saudi oil output has already fallen to its lowest level since 1990 and exports slumped to about 3 million barrels per day in August. Nine days after the strikes, the East-West pipeline remains shut, the timing of the partial restart has not been officially confirmed and Riyadh has still not published a detailed damage report. Even if half of the capacity returns soon, the incident has shown that the kingdom's main alternative to Hormuz can be disabled by a well-planned strike, and the risk of new attacks on the pipeline and on Yanbu is likely to weigh on Saudi exports and global oil prices in the coming weeks.