Saudi Arabia resumes Yanbu oil loadings after East-West pipeline restart

Saudi Arabia has resumed crude loadings from its Red Sea port of Yanbu following the restart of the East-West Pipeline, according to trade sources and shipping data, offering some relief to Middle East oil exports.

The pipeline was shut on September 11 after drone attacks that Riyadh blamed on Iraqi militias, cutting off crude shipments from Yanbu. Operations resumed last Tuesday.

State oil company Saudi Aramco notified customers on Monday evening of its October loading schedule from Yanbu, an Asian refining source said. The refiner loaded a cargo from the terminal late last week. Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The restart is expected to support crude exports from the Middle East, where shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — the conduit for one-fifth of global oil supply before the conflict — has been constrained by the US war with Iran.

Vessel-tracking firm TankerTrackers.com said European Space Agency satellite imagery captured over the Red Sea on September 27 showed Saudi Arabia loading nearly 10 million barrels of crude at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz, a terminal to the south. It also observed refined-product loadings and visually identified 40 tankers in total, regardless of activity or proximity to the terminals.

Two trade sources separately estimated crude loadings from Yanbu at about 2 million barrels per day since last week.

Ship-tracking firm Kpler estimates current pipeline throughput at around 2.65 million bpd and expects it to climb to between 3 million and 4 million bpd in the coming days. A full return to the pre-attack rate of roughly 5.5 million bpd could still take another month, it said in a note on Monday.

Crude inventories at the Yanbu terminal rose by roughly 1 million barrels on September 22, the first build since the attack, according to Kpler.

On a seven-day average through September 22, Kpler estimates Hormuz crude transits, including Gulf of Oman ship-to-ship activity, at 9 million bpd, up from a late-July low of 2.2 million bpd and equivalent to roughly 60% of the 2025 average. Adding net gains from Yanbu and Fujairah lifts Middle East crude exports to just under 80% of pre-conflict levels.

Crude loadings at Egypt's Sidi Kerir resumed on September 22 after a 10-day hiatus, but tankers remain queued offshore as restrictions continue to limit access for much of the commercial fleet, Kpler said.