Saudi Arabia Is Building Its Own Way Around Hormuz Srividya Kalyanaraman Tue, October 13, 2026 at 4:05 PM EDT 2 min read NVDA +0.97% 2222.SR +0.08% 2223.SR +1.63% Trade NVIDIA on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
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You know that feeling when plan B starts working better than plan A? That's where Saudi Arabia is right now. The East-West Crude Pipeline bypasses the embattled Strait of Hormuz, and runs through Saudi Arabia's east and west coasts. Riyadh is working towards expanding its capacity to carry 10 million barrels of oil per day, up from the current 5.8 million bpd.
The East-West Crude Pipeline is 745 miles long and runs from oil fields in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province across the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast of the country. It's operated by Saudi Aramco and bypasses the Strait of Hormuz entirely.
The catch, however, is the capacity: it has a maximum of 7 million barrels per day, and with 5.8 million bpd already transiting the pipeline, it's close to hitting the ceiling. But Riyadh is working on expanding the capacity, and it's hoping it will reach 10 million bpd within two to three years.
All that's fine and dandy if we had oil to transport. Last month, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told London's Energy Intelligence Forum that the cushion against supply shocks had become "scarily thin." Refilling the supply to pre-war levels could take up to two years, even if Hormuz opens tomorrow.
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Riyadh makes a pretty penny, even with the "scarily thin" amount of crude left. At $100 a barrel, it pulls in about $580 million a day in gross value.
The recent G7 Summit, led by President Trump, is forcing countries to release their reserves. The IEA's 400 million-barrel release was its largest ever, and governments have since announced up to 100 million more. It's reasonable to expect all this to bring prices down, but even still the supply from the Middle East is not to be neglected. Saudi Arabia alone accounts for roughly 11–12% of global oil production.
So when Riyadh says it's investing in an alternative to Hormuz, that stays as an alternative even when Hormuz reopens. And it comes with an OPEC influence. It's the group's leading producer and a key participant in decisions that affect global supply and prices.
The challenge now to Saudi's prosperous pipeline is if Houthi attacks block Yanbu cargoes. But Aramco has a plan C, and is working on more export routes and expanding overseas storage.
