Saudi Arabia’s Oil Export Crisis: How Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the East-West Pipeline Became a Strategic Risk
Saudi Arabia’s Oil Export Crisis: How Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the East-West Pipeline Became a Strategic Risk Quick Answer Saudi Arabia has spent 2026 dealing with severe disruption to its traditional oil route through the Strait of Hormuz. The Kingdom shifted more crude west through its East-West Pipeline, making the Red Sea route increasingly important. Recent Houthi advances near Bab el-Mandeb and attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure have exposed the limits of that backup strategy. Saudi exports recovered sharply in September, so the situation is serious but not a complete shutdown of the Kingdom’s oil trade. The larger problem is strategic: several routes that were supposed to provide redundancy are now exposed to the same regional conflict. Saudi Arabia’s oil system was designed with a simple strategic idea in mind: if one export route became dangerous, the Kingdom would have another way to move crude to global buyers. That re...