Saudi Arabia Restarts Red Sea Crude Oil Loadings

Saudi Arabia has resumed crude oil loadings at the Yanbu port along the Red Sea following the partial restoration of the East-West pipeline, according to Reuters. The pipeline had been shut down for two weeks after drone attacks on September 10 damaged pumping stations. While full resumption of flows of around 4 million barrels per day (bpd) may take weeks, the Yanbu port and the Al Muajjiz terminal near Yanbu are already loading crude oil, easing the supply crunch in the Middle East.

Currently, crude oil loadings at Yanbu have averaged around 2 million bpd since last week, with Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, sharing the loading schedule for October with customers on Monday. Satellite imagery from Sunday revealed nearly 10 million barrels of crude oil being loaded at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz terminals, with 40 tankers identified by vessel-tracking company TankerTrackers.com.

The resumption of Yanbu loadings and Saudi crude shipments outside the Strait of Hormuz is expected to boost global oil supply, except for heightened Houthi threats to Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. In September, Middle East crude oil exports rebounded to about 12.8 million bpd, as Saudi Arabia redirected oil flows from the west to the east following the pipeline outage. Aramco has been loading crude in the Gulf of Oman using ship-to-ship transfers.