A crucial Saudi oil pipeline that was struck in an attack will be mostly out of service for weeks as the damage is repaired, two regional officials said, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized more islands along Red Sea shipping routes in a new blow to Saudi Arabia’s oil exports.
Repairing the damage, including at a major pumping facility, could take three to five weeks, the officials told The Associated Press. The pipeline may work partially during the repairs, one of the officials said, but they could not say how much oil might get through.
The Iran war has forced the kingdom to shift its exports away from the Persian Gulf, since Iranian attacks have stifled shipping through the gulf’s sole exit, the Strait of Hormuz.
So the kingdom has relied on the East-West Pipeline, which runs 1,200 km across the breadth of the country, to move its crude production from Gulf ports to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. From there it can be put on tankers for export.
But authorities were forced to shut down the pipeline after an attack Thursday that Saudi Arabia blamed on drones from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.
