Saudi Arabia shuts the East-West pipeline after drones from Iraq hit pump stations

Saudi Arabia has stopped the East-West crude line, the 1,200 kilometre pipe from Abqaiq to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The Ministry of Energy called the halt a precaution after drones launched from Iraqi territory struck facilities in the Riyadh and Medina regions on 10 and 11 September.

The Saudi foreign ministry said the strikes caused injuries and damage still being assessed. No deaths were reported. Two U.S. officials told CNN that pump stations beside the pipe took the hits. Copernicus Sentinel-3 images from 10 September showed a black smoke plume south of Medina, near Mahd al-Dhahab. NASA FIRMS recorded clustered heat signatures along the same corridor. At least six of nine thermal points later matched flare pits used to burn off product in an emergency.

The line, also called Petroline, is 120 centimetres across. It has been Riyadh's main way around the Strait of Hormuz since Iran tightened the Gulf this year. Ship trackers and oil analysts told Reuters the pipe had been moving about 4 to 5 percent of world crude in recent months. With Hormuz blocked and Houthi forces now on Perim Island at the Bab el-Mandeb, the shutdown removes the principal overland workaround on the Arabian Peninsula.

Baghdad confirms the launch site

On Saturday the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said the drones left from Maysan governorate, which borders Iran. Al-Zaidi dismissed the Maysan operations commander and ordered an inquiry into that command. The Iraqi government condemned the attack and said it would consider legal action against those involved.

An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that Baghdad temporarily closed three crossings into Iran: Shalamcheh in Basra, al-Shib in Maysan, and Mandali in Diyala. Search teams were working the al-Tayyib border area of Maysan after launchers were found there. Spokesman Sabah al-Numan said al-Zaidi also approved an Iranian request for a joint investigation of the platforms.

No group claimed the strike. Neither capital named a militia in public. The Saudi foreign ministry said Riyadh chose not to retaliate after a request from al-Zaidi. That choice leaves the military question open while the file moves through Baghdad and the joint inquiry with Tehran.

What the pipe was doing

The East-West system opened in stages from 1981. Its job is to get Gulf crude to the Red Sea without passing Hormuz. After the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on 28 February, tanker traffic through the strait collapsed and Riyadh pushed more barrels west to Yanbu. The International Energy Agency said on Friday that Saudi crude supply had already fallen to its lowest level in more than three decades, in part because Houthi-linked groups have been hitting ships in the Bab el-Mandeb.

Oil prices had moved back above $100 a barrel before the pipeline news. The halt does not by itself set a price. It does change the map of available export routes. If Yanbu stays dark, barrels that used the pipe have to wait for Hormuz to reopen, find another land route, or sit in storage. None of those options is fast, and none replaces a working 1,200 kilometre line that had become the kingdom's hedge against a closed Gulf.

Riyadh has not published how many barrels the pipe was carrying on the day of the strike, or how long the halt will last. Damage assessments at the pump stations near Al-Masbah and Al-Dhahrah remain internal. Iraq has not said who built or flew the drones. For buyers who treated the East-West line as insurance against a closed Hormuz, that insurance is now itself a target. The next useful number is how many days of Yanbu loadings are cancelled, and whether any other Gulf producer can replace those cargoes without using the same two chokepoints.