Saudi Arabia ramps up crude exports via the Red Sea port of Yanbu to bypass the Strait of Hormuz

To reduce its reliance on the Strait of Hormuz for oil exports, Saudi Arabia is moving rising volumes of crude through its East-West (Petroline) pipeline from the eastern Abqaiq fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, loading tankers there instead. Oil market reports in mid July 2026 put flows on this route at around 4 million barrels per day; the pipeline has a nameplate capacity of nearly 7 million barrels per day.

The relevance for Iran lies in the same Hormuz chokepoint. The strait carries about a fifth of the world's oil and is the main route for Iran's own crude exports, and traffic through it has now fallen sharply. Persian Gulf producers can offset part of the global squeeze via alternatives such as the Red Sea, but tankers leaving Yanbu must still pass the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which faces a Houthi threat. Iran has no comparable bypass, so the halt in Hormuz traffic weighs more heavily on its export revenue.