Conflicting reports emerged Monday over Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline: Agence France-Presse cited a Saudi energy-sector source saying the conduit was attacked again on Sunday and halted, while Bloomberg reported the same day that oil continues to flow normally after a brief weekend stoppage. The 745-mile pipeline is the kingdom's lifeline for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and its status moves global oil prices.
"The East-West pipeline was attacked again yesterday," a source working in the kingdom's energy sector told AFP on Monday, describing an attack on a pumping station east of Riyadh in Khurais — a site that had not been targeted before. "There was big damage and the pipeline stopped again."
It is the pipeline's second attack-related shutdown in a month. Drone strikes blamed on Iran-backed Iraqi militias forced its closure on September 10; Saudi Arabia repaired the damage and resumed operations on September 22.
Bloomberg's Monday reporting painted a different picture: sources confirmed the conduit was briefly halted over the weekend due to the attack, but said "oil continues to flow through the East-West link" at normal levels.
Ship tracker Kpler estimates the pipeline is now moving about 5.5 million barrels a day — roughly 80% of its 7-million-barrel daily capacity and above the roughly 4 million barrels a day flowing before the September 10 attack. That leaves about 4 million barrels a day available for export from the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
Saudi shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are also recovering: Kpler data shows crude flows through the strait climbing from around 1.4 million barrels a day in late August to about 4.1 million last week, while loadings at the Gulf port of Ras Tanura surged from 1.5 million to about 6.5 million barrels a day since early September.
As exports recover, Saudi Arabia adjusted its official selling prices: cutting prices for grades sold to Asia, raising prices to Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean by $3 a barrel, and leaving U.S. prices unchanged. On Monday, Brent crude slipped 0.2% to $102.07 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate fell 0.8% to $90.40.
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia and its OPEC+ allies agreed to keep oil production steady in November, citing elevated regional security risks. Several vessels have come under attack in the Strait of Hormuz and around the coasts of Oman and Yemen in recent weeks.
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned that the global oil supply buffer is running "scarily thin." Kpler analysts expect Yanbu loadings to return to pre-attack levels by November, but frequent attacks by Yemen's Houthi militants on Saudi west-coast facilities — and security risks around the Bab al-Mandeb strait — are pushing Yanbu cargoes onto the costlier route around the Cape of Good Hope.
For the market, the next key question is whether this pace of recovery can be sustained.