A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil was damaged after catching fire in Iraqi territorial waters, following unidentified attacks targeting two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra, Iraq, on March 12, 2026.
Mohamed Aty | Reuters
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has abruptly thrust two alternative pipelines into the global spotlight, one in Saudi Arabia and the other in the United Arab Emirates.
The first is Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline network, or Petroline, a roughly 750-mile system that transports crude oil across Saudi Arabia, connecting Abqaiq on the oil-rich kingdom’s eastern Gulf coast to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
The East-West pipeline is estimated to have a total design capacity of 7 million barrels per day, following recent expansions, and Saudi oil giant Aramco said earlier this week it expects the network to reach full capacity in the coming days.
The second smallest pipeline is the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi Pipeline (ADCOP), or the Habshan-Fujairah Pipeline. The pipeline, which spans some 248 miles from the Habshan onshore oil facilities to Fujairah, is estimated to handle 1.5 million barrels per day, with a reported total capacity of about 1.8 million barrels per day.
Crucially, both alternative pieces of Gulf infrastructure avoid the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil chokepoint that has been blocked since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28.
Iran has retaliated by attacking ships attempting to pass through the narrow maritime corridor, and several incidents have been reported in recent days.
Together, energy analysts said the East-West pipeline and ADCOP could help partially offset the nearly 20 million barrels per day that normally transit the Strait of Hormuz. However, the risk of damage to infrastructure amid the growing Middle East crisis remains an ongoing challenge.
Oil transfer pipelines and storage silos at the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
Duncan Chard | Bloomberg | fake images
“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are already increasing utilization of pipelines surrounding the strait,” Naveen Das, senior oil analyst at global trade intelligence company Kpler, told CNBC by email.
“In the UAE, we estimate that the 1.5 mbd ADCOP pipeline is operating at 71% utilization, leaving around 440,000 (barrels per day) of excess capacity. ADNOC can temporarily increase throughput to 1.8 mbd if necessary,” Das said.
He added that the prospect of attacks on energy infrastructure across the country could limit this estimate of total capacity.
In fact, Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil giant reportedly shut down its massive Ruwais refinery in response to a fire at a facility within the complex, according to multiple media reports, citing anonymous sources. CNBC has contacted an ADNOC spokesperson and is awaiting a response.
The Ruwais complex in the United Arab Emirates is estimated to be able to process 922,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
“With crude oil supplies increasingly stranded in the Gulf, refiners could soon be forced to adjust their operations, scaling back operations as product exports stagnate and directing production solely to domestic markets,” Pankaj Srivastava, senior vice president at energy research firm Rystad Energy, said in a research note.
“The UAE’s Abu Dhabi Pipeline (ADCOP) allows crude exports to bypass the Strait via Fujairah, but refined products from the Ruwais complex still rely heavily on tanker routes transiting Hormuz,” Srivastava said on Thursday.
“As a result, UAE refiners may still need to adjust product exports or manage inventory build-ups if maritime flows remain restricted,” he added.
Impact on the energy market
Oil prices have been extremely volatile since the outbreak of the Iran war last month, with global benchmark Brent crude rising to nearly $120 a barrel earlier in the week, before falling back to around $90.
Crude oil futures last traded near $100 a barrel on Thursday morning, when new attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf were reported.
“The longer this conflict goes on, the more these warehouses fill up and there is nothing to do but production cuts,” Sasha Foss, an energy market analyst at Marex, told CNBC’s “Europe Early Europe” program on Wednesday.
He estimated that Iraqi oil production had fallen by up to 70% due to the Iran war and warned that further production shutdowns could cause oil prices to rise even further.
“When we see cuts in countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that’s when it will really hit global oil markets hard,” Foss said.
