'Swinging into action:' The Saudi Arabian pipeline designed to bypass Hormuz

'Swinging into action:' The Saudi Arabian pipeline designed to bypass Hormuz Submitted by Sean Mathews on Tue, 03/10/2026 - 20:08 Saudi Arabia is pumping oil to the Red Sea, but this new route will not address fuel shortages and puts the Houthis back in play A handout picture provided by Energy giant Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's oil company, shows one of its engineers at Yanbu refinery in Medina province, on 16 January 2011 (Joe Lynch/Saudi Aramco/AFP) Off Oil tankers were aflame in the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia was worried Iran would cut its access to markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Four decades later, the desert pipeline the kingdom built in the 1980s to bypass the strait is “swinging” into action as the world faces an unprecedented plunge in oil supplies. Saudi Aramco chief executive officer Amin Nasser said on Tuesday that they are ramping up crude flows through the East-West pipeline, and it will hit full daily capacity - seven million barrels - in a few days.