Saudi Arabia Restarts Oil Loadings at Port of Yanbu Amid Pipeline Partial Restoration
Saudi Arabia has resumed crude oil loadings at the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast after a partial restoration of the East-West pipeline. The pipeline was damaged by drone attacks on September 10, but partially restarted last Thursday.
However, fully restoring transportation of around 4 million barrels per day is expected to take several weeks. Meanwhile, loading volumes at Yanbu have stood at approximately 2 million barrels per day since last week, according to Reuters trade sources.
The resumption of shipments through Yanbu could increase global oil supply, but heightened Houthi threats to Saudi tankers in the Red Sea persist. In a related development, tanker ship-to-ship transfers were used as an alternative method for loading oil onto vessels during the pipeline shutdown.