Oil Prices Jump as Saudi Arabia’s Hormuz Bypass Fails

Brent crude jumped $2.90, or 2.77 percent, to $107.51 a barrel on September 14 after Saudi Arabia’s Hormuz bypass stayed shut. West Texas Intermediate rose $2.27, or 2.27 percent, to $102.32, after prices opened more than 3 percent higher.

The East-West pipeline, the land route that exists so Saudi crude can skip the Strait of Hormuz, was still offline after drones launched from Iraq hit it on September 10. Houthis took Perim Island at the mouth of the Red Sea the next day, and a projectile set a ship on fire in Hormuz over the weekend.

The Bypass Built for Hormuz Went Dark on Thursday

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said on September 11 that it had stopped the East-West Crude Oil Pipeline as a precaution after several drones struck the line in the Riyadh and Medina areas the morning before. The ministry sent teams to secure the route and check it. Satellite images showed fires at pumping stations along the 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) run from Abqaiq to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the drones came from Iraq and caused injuries and damage. At the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, Riyadh said it would not respond at this stage and would give Baghdad time to stop launches from Iraqi soil, while reserving the right to protect its facilities.

Following a request from the Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq to allow the brotherly Iraqi government the opportunity to take the necessary measures to prevent attacks originating from Iraqi territories against the Kingdom and neighboring countries, the Kingdom has chosen not to respond at this stage and to support the efforts of the Iraqi government.

Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 11 statement

Zaidi condemned the strikes, dismissed the Maysan operations commander, and opened an investigation after confirming the launch site sat in that southeastern province, near the Iranian border. No group claimed the attack. Iraqi officers described the range, about 800 kilometers to Riyadh and 1,100 kilometers to Medina, as a long-range job, not a cheap tactical drone.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration still lists Aramco’s East-West line at 5 million barrels a day of nameplate, and it puts Saudi and UAE lines together at about 4.7 million barrels a day of bypass capacity if Hormuz is lost. In this war that spare kit has been a working artery. The line had been moving about 4 million barrels a day to Yanbu, around 4 percent of world oil supply on the EIA’s second-quarter total of 99.7 million barrels a day.

Two Straits Took Hits in One Weekend

The pipeline outage did not arrive alone. Yemen’s Houthis, already running a maritime embargo on Saudi shipping declared on July 20, moved down the Red Sea coast and onto the rock that splits Bab el-Mandeb into two shipping lanes.

THE 96 HOURS THAT CLOSED THE SPARE DOOR

1. September 10: Drones launched from Iraq hit the East-West line in the Riyadh and Medina areas. Fires burn at pumping stations.
2. September 11: Riyadh shuts the pipeline. Houthi forces take Perim Island and the mainland town of Dhubab after Saudi-backed troops pull back, following the fall of Mocha a day earlier.
3. September 12: Saudi Civil Defence says a Houthi projectile wounds two people in Al-Tuwal, Jazan, and damages a mosque, buildings, and vehicles. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree says the group hit weapons depots and command centres at a base in Sharurah.
4. September 12 to 13: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre reports a projectile strike on a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, a fire, and a crew evacuation. The Qeshm governor says an Iranian commercial ship is hit off Qeshm Island, 22 kilometers from Bandar Abbas, killing one of 10 crew and wounding four.
5. September 13: Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi postpones a Monday meeting in Salalah between Gulf states and Iran on Hormuz traffic.

Civil Defence called the Jazan strike on civilian objects a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. It followed a September 8 wave of Houthi attacks on Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan, and Najran that wounded 73 people. The weekend’s ship hits sat on a waterway that, by mid-September, was already running a fraction of its peacetime traffic.

Why Monday’s Rally Is Pricing a Missing Door

Oil had already gained 8 percent last week, with Brent settling September 11 at $104.61 and WTI at $100.05. Monday’s extra lift came after traders had to price a system in which the Gulf’s main seaway is pinched, the Red Sea exit is under Houthi pressure, and the land bridge between them is stopped.

EIA tanker tracking in the September Short-Term Energy Outlook shows how far the map has already moved. Hormuz, which averaged 20.9 million barrels a day in the first half of 2025, carried 21.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. By the second quarter of 2026 the same table shows Hormuz oil flows of 4.9 million barrels a day. Bab el-Mandeb ran the other way.

OIL THROUGH THE TWO STRAITS

Those second-quarter Bab volumes are about 8 percent of world supply. After the July embargo, cargoes through the strait ran closer to the 4 to 5 percent band cited for recent months. The two figures describe different windows. The physical point is the same. Barrels that used to leave the Gulf were sent to Yanbu, then south toward Asia, which is why a hit on the pipeline and a Houthi hold on Perim land on the same cargo.

Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the drones hit a pumping station, a harder repair than a length of pipe. High-resolution satellite frames of the Medina stretch show crews already digging out a wrecked section. That is why repair talk is measured in weeks.

Yanbu Can Load From Tanks for Five to Seven Days

Stopping the pipeline does not stop Yanbu on the first morning. Crude already sitting in tanks can still be pumped onto ships. Saudi buyers said those stocks may cover five to seven days of recent exports if the line stays down. One industry source put a full restart at five to six weeks, with a chance of partial flow sooner.

Kpler’s cargo data put completed crude exports at 4.2 million barrels a day from Yanbu in April, the post-war high, and 4.14 million in June. Vortexa’s second-quarter average at the Red Sea port was about 4 million barrels a day, against about 763,000 before the war. Of the June movements, around 3.3 million barrels a day still sailed to Asia through Bab el-Mandeb.

MONDAY’S PRINT

• Brent: $107.51 a barrel, up $2.90, or 2.77 percent, as of 2313 GMT on September 14.
• WTI: $102.32 a barrel, up $2.27, or 2.27 percent.
• Last week: an 8 percent rise, with Friday’s settle at $104.61 Brent and $100.05 WTI.
• Saudi output: 6.2 million barrels a day in August, down from 10.9 million in February, as told to OPEC.

Having oil in the ground is not the same as loading it. August output is already 4.7 million barrels a day below February. If Yanbu’s tanks run out before the pumps are back, the next step is fewer cargoes, not a paper outage.

THE BUFFERS THAT ARE LEFT

• Yanbu tanks: five to seven days of recent loadings if the East-West line stays shut.
• UAE’s Fujairah line: the other Gulf bypass counted in the EIA’s 4.7 million barrel-a-day pair, still working east of Hormuz.
• Egypt’s SUMED system: 2.5 million barrels a day of crude from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, not enough on its own for Yanbu’s full export slate.
• The Cape: a longer haul that burns time and hulls rather than opening a new tap.

None of those options restores the 4 million barrels a day that had been crossing the peninsula. They buy hours and reroutes.

Egypt’s SUMED Line Cannot Take the Whole Load

The textbook answer, once crude is on the Red Sea, is to send it north instead of south. Egypt’s SUMED pipeline can take crude from Ain Sukhna to Sidi Kerir. Direct Suez transits can carry some of the rest. Refined products from Rabigh, Yanbu, Jizan, and Jeddah cannot use SUMED and would have to go through the canal.

Kpler’s test of that turnaround is blunt. Holding Yanbu near 4.2 million barrels a day of crude, with the same Asian buyers, leaves about 3.4 million barrels a day exposed to Bab el-Mandeb. SUMED’s 2.5 million barrel-a-day ceiling cannot swallow that slate, and other shippers already use part of it. Saudi arrivals at Ain Sukhna averaged about 770,000 barrels a day from March through June and peaked near 1 million in April, well under a full takeover.

The tighter bind is empty ships. Every laden tanker sent north needs a hull coming back into the Red Sea to reload. Kpler counted about 1.1 ballast tankers a day heading south through Suez in the first half of 2026. A full northern program would need several times that, above the busiest southbound-ballast stretch on its records, 3.3 a day in 2022. Russian barrels already occupy southbound slots on the way to Asia. The canal can count the ships. The fleet still has to be in the right place.

Oman Puts the Salalah Meeting on Hold

The one diplomatic date on the calendar did not survive the weekend. Gulf diplomats had been due in Salalah on September 14 to hear an Iran-Oman plan on Hormuz routing, a session billed without the United States in the room. Bahrain had already said it would stay away. Albusaidi called the meeting off on Sunday.

https://x.com/badralbusaidi/status/2099224052619735498

Iranian officials said some regional countries asked for the delay and that Tehran and Muscat would set a new date. Iranian media described a scheme that would keep the strait closed to free traffic and send ships through Iranian waters under Iranian arrangements. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had already said an understanding with Oman would not mean an immediate reopening.

Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, wrote on Sunday that without an operational result from the Oman talks, or a fast restart of the East-West line, crude could press toward the $119.48 high from early March. That print dates to the opening shock of the war the United States and Israel launched on February 28. An interim deal in June collapsed after a few weeks. No peace talks have sat since.

Monday’s $107.51 Brent handle is still a long walk from that March spike. The tanks at Yanbu, the wrecked pumps in Medina, and a postponed room in Salalah are what now stand between the two numbers.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on oil prices, shipping routes, and official statements, and it is for information only. It is not investment, trading, or financial advice, and it does not recommend buying, selling, or holding crude futures, energy stocks, or related products. Readers who may act on energy-price moves should consult a licensed financial adviser or commodities professional who can judge their own position. Figures and statuses reflect the sources as of September 14, 2026, and may change as pipelines, talks, and futures markets move.