Saudi oil pipeline hit in drone strikes, out of service for weeks

Drone strikes originating from Iraqi territory slammed into Saudi Arabia’s most important cross-country oil pipeline on September 10-11, knocking the 1,200-kilometer artery offline and sending crude prices sharply higher. The East-West Crude Oil Pipeline, better known as Petroline, will require weeks of repairs before full operations can resume. Brent crude surged more than 3% to exceed $108 per barrel on the news. What happened on the ground The strikes targeted pumping stations in the Riyadh and Medina regions, triggering extensive fires and injuring workers at the sites. Satellite imagery released after the incident confirmed severe structural damage and visible oil spills spreading into the surrounding desert. Saudi authorities shut down the entire pipeline as a precautionary measure. Petroline has a theoretical capacity of up to 7 million barrels per day, though it typically moves around 4 million bpd from the kingdom’s eastern oil fields to the Red Sea export terminal at Yanbu. Industry estimates peg complete repairs at five to six weeks, though a partial restart could come sooner. The timeline matters because current crude stocks sitting at Yanbu port can only sustain export...