A crucial Saudi oil pipeline hit in a strike will be mostly out of service for several weeks for repairs, officials said. The pipeline's identity and the source of the attack were not specified in the initial reports.
A Monday afternoon report citing Saudi officials stated that a key oil pipeline, hit in a strike, will remain mostly out of service for several weeks for repairs. The pipeline's identity and the party behind the attack were not explicitly confirmed in the new report.
The development lands amid a thread The Zioneer has tracked since Sunday. On September 13 at 15:22 Jerusalem, Reuters reported that repairs to the strategic East-West Pipeline—the critical artery bypassing the Strait of Hormuz—could take 5–6 weeks, and that Saudi crude export reserves may be exhausted within 5–7 days. An exclusive Zioneer image later that day showed physical damage to the pipeline after it was struck by multiple drone attacks from Iraq over the holiday weekend.
The East-West Pipeline has been targeted repeatedly. As The Zioneer reported on September 12, Saudi Arabia announced a second drone strike from Iraq on the pipeline within 48 hours, temporarily halting oil transport. The kingdom's energy infrastructure has also faced attacks on the Jazan refinery and a pipeline in the Al-Baqi and Riyadh area, as previously documented in July and August.
It remains unclear whether the new repair estimate refers to the same East-West Pipeline or a different critical artery, and Saudi authorities have not issued an official statement beyond the officials' remarks. The prolonged outage of a major pipeline threatens global oil supply, with earlier estimates placing 4% of global supply at risk.
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