Some physical crude oil cargoes in Europe traded above $130 a barrel Tuesday as the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline increased pressure on supplies reaching buyers outside the Persian Gulf.
Reuters reported, citing LSEG physical-market data, that North Sea Forties crude reached $136.75 a barrel on Tuesday. That price is not an official Saudi or U.S. government figure, but it provides an important market measure of how expensive immediately available crude has become as buyers search for alternative barrels. The underlying Saudi supply disruption is officially confirmed.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said in its Sept. 11 statement on the East–West Pipeline that the system was subjected to multiple attacks in the Riyadh and Madinah regions on the morning of Sept. 10. The ministry said the pipeline was shut as a precaution while emergency and technical teams worked to secure it and assess its safety.
The ministry did not give a restart date. It said further developments would be announced as they became available. That makes the latest disruption materially different from a normal short-term move in oil prices.
Saudi Arabia has temporarily lost access to one of its most important routes for moving crude from the country’s eastern producing region toward the Red Sea. The importance of that route is unusually high because of continuing disruption around the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s analysis of Saudi Arabia identifies the East–West Pipeline as the country’s main crude route for bypassing both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. EIA says the system normally has capacity of about 5 million barrels per day and can temporarily operate at as much as 7 million barrels per day.
A separate EIA analysis of global oil chokepoints shows why that bypass matters. Total petroleum flows through the Strait of Hormuz averaged 20.9 million barrels per day in the first half of 2025, equal to roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption.
EIA says pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are among the main alternatives available when oil cannot move normally through Hormuz. The agency estimates that the Saudi East–West Pipeline and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi pipeline together could provide about 4.7 million barrels per day of bypass capacity during a disruption.
That makes the Saudi shutdown especially important now. It affects infrastructure designed specifically to reduce dependence on the region’s most important maritime oil chokepoint.
The East–West route runs from Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil-producing region toward Yanbu on the Red Sea. According to an EIA review of the system, Saudi Aramco operates the pipeline from the Abqaiq processing area to Yanbu, providing an alternative export route that does not require tankers to pass through Hormuz.
The pipeline has already demonstrated its importance during earlier periods of regional disruption. EIA says Saudi Arabia increased crude movements through the East–West system in 2024 as shipping risks increased around Bab el-Mandeb.
The agency also found that crude exports originating from Yanbu reached a record 18% of Saudi seaborne crude exports in the second quarter of 2024. More recent EIA data show that dependence on alternative routes increased sharply after disruption around Hormuz intensified in 2026.
The agency’s August 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook energy-security analysis estimates that oil flows through Hormuz fell from 21.6 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 14.9 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2026 and 4.9 million barrels per day in the second quarter. That decline made Saudi Arabia’s ability to move crude west toward the Red Sea increasingly important to international supply.
EIA said in July that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the only regional OPEC producers able to reroute significant crude exports around the closed or heavily disrupted Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia was using its East–West system to move crude toward Yanbu, with 5 million barrels per day of its approximately 7 million-barrel-per-day capacity available for exports, according to EIA’s July assessment of regional production and transport capacity.
The Sept. 10 attacks therefore hit infrastructure that had become more important than it was under normal shipping conditions. Saudi officials have confirmed that the latest incident caused physical damage as well as injuries.
In a separate Sept. 11 statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said drones coming from Iraq had targeted the East–West Pipeline in the Riyadh and Madinah regions, causing injuries and damage that authorities were working to repair.
The Ministry of Energy has not publicly quantified how much pumping capacity was lost in the September attack. That is important because an earlier attack in April provides some historical context but cannot be used as an estimate for the current outage.
After attacks earlier this year, the Saudi Energy Ministry said approximately 700,000 barrels per day of East–West pumping capacity had initially been lost. The ministry later announced on April 12 that the system had recovered its full approximately 7 million-barrel-per-day operational capacity, according to its official April recovery announcement.
There is no official evidence that the September outage has removed the same amount of capacity. The April figure therefore should not be applied to the current disruption. The newest market reports suggest the consequences are beginning to extend beyond the pipeline itself.
Reuters reported Tuesday, citing trading and shipping sources, that some Saudi September-loading cargoes for European customers were being canceled and that crude loadings at Yanbu had been suspended.
Saudi Aramco did not publicly confirm those details in the official sources reviewed by Investozora, so they remain reported market information rather than established Saudi government facts. That distinction is important.
What is officially established is that the East–West Pipeline was attacked, the Saudi government shut it as a precaution, technical teams were assessing damage and safety, and no restart date was given in the official announcement.
What has not yet been officially established is the number of canceled export cargoes, the exact amount of crude supply affected, how long any Yanbu loading disruption may last, or when full pipeline operations will resume. The physical oil market is nevertheless reacting to that uncertainty.
Reuters reported that Forties crude reached $136.75 a barrel Tuesday, putting some immediately available European physical crude above $130. Because that figure comes from commercial market data rather than an official government dataset, it should be understood as a reported market price, not an official Saudi price announcement.
For U.S. households, the Saudi pipeline outage does not directly change taxes, federal payments or benefits. The possible effect comes through energy prices. If constrained Middle East supply keeps crude prices high for an extended period, higher costs can eventually feed into gasoline, diesel, transportation and freight.
The size and timing of that effect would depend on how long the disruption lasts, global inventories, refinery conditions and replacement supplies. A $130 physical crude cargo does not automatically translate into a particular U.S. gasoline price.
The timing also matters because the Federal Reserve is completing its September policy meeting. Investozora’s Sept. 16 Fed decision coverage examines the monetary-policy outlook separately.
The Saudi outage does not determine the Fed’s decision. But a prolonged energy shock could become more relevant to the inflation outlook if higher fuel and transportation costs persist and begin feeding through to other prices. The next major development to watch is an official Saudi operational update.
The Ministry of Energy said further information would be released as developments occurred, but the official statement reviewed by Investozora did not provide a timetable for reopening the pipeline.
A confirmed restart would materially change the supply outlook. A prolonged shutdown or an official confirmation of reduced export availability would deepen the disruption. For now, the strongest verified conclusion is narrower.
Saudi Arabia has shut one of the world’s most important alternative crude export routes after multiple attacks, at a time when flows through the Strait of Hormuz have already fallen sharply.
Physical-market reporting indicates that some crude cargo prices have moved above $130 as buyers respond to the disruption, but the exact Saudi export losses and the duration of the outage remain unconfirmed by Saudi authorities.
