Saudi Arabia on Sunday announced that it has fully restored the oil pumping capacity days after it was damaged in Iranian attacks.
According to a statement issued by the government, it restored full oil
pumping capacity through the East-West pipeline, which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, amounting to approximately seven million barrels per day.
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The ministry further said that the energy facilities and the pipeline affected by the Iranian attacks have recovered and restored operational capacity.
It stated that the authorities have recovered production of about 300,000 barrels per day at the Manifa oilfield and work is ongoing to regain operations at the Khurais site, which would add another 300,000 daily barrels.
On Wednesday, Iran attacked the pipeline just hours after the ceasefire was agreed. The next day, Saudi announced that the Iranian attacks have cut its oil production capacity by around 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) and throughput on its East-West Pipeline by about 700,000 bpd.
The East-West Pipeline has been Saudi Arabia’s only crude export route amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The East-West oil pipeline – also called Petroline – is a single, 1,200-km stretch of steel pipes buried beneath the scorching sands of the Arabian Peninsula.
According to Reuters, the oil pipeline is specifically designed to safeguard global energy supplies from maritime blockades, such as the one in the Hormuz strait amid the West Asia conflict.
This infrastructure serves as Saudi’s only remaining outlet for crude exports following the closure of Hormuz by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The East-West pipeline was engineered to divert roughly 7 million bpd from the kingdom’s eastern oil heartlands to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
This was not the first time Iran has targeted oil infrastructure near Yanbu during the ongoing conflict. Last month, a drone crashed into the Samref refinery in the industrial zone in the port.
