Saudi Arabia Resumes Yanbu Crude Exports via East-West Pipeline Following 17-Day Halt

Saudi Arabia has resumed crude oil exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu via the East-West Petroline, concluding a 17-day export halt caused by drone attacks on pumping stations. While pumping has restarted, full restoration of the pipeline's throughput is expected to take six to eight weeks. During the outage of the 4 million barrel-per-day corridor, Saudi Arabia diverted flows through the Persian Gulf, lifting September Strait of Hormuz exports to 3.6 million barrels per day. The logistical shift strained shipping, pushing Persian Gulf-to-China supertanker rates to a record $1.27 million per day.