Two months into the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Vessel traffic is a fraction of pre-war levels, and the intermittent ceasefires, blockades and re-closures since February 28 have not restored tanker confidence.
Hormuz is a major global chokepoint. It normally carries about 20 million barrels of crude and oil products a day, plus roughly a fifth of global LNG exports. A third of the world’s helium and a similar share of urea for fertiliser also transit the strait.
Plans to diversify away from Hormuz have existed for decades, and those alternatives are being stress-tested now. Bypass infrastructure is delivering roughly 3.5–5.5 million barrels per day of crude capacity—but that is far short of what Hormuz normally handles.
Hormuz workarounds
The most important pipeline right now runs across Saudi Arabia. The East-West Pipeline, or Petroline, built in the 1980s during the original Tanker War, was expanded to a 7 million barrels-per-day emergency ceiling in 2019. But Yanbu’s loading terminals on the Red Sea were not designed for that throughput, and analysts estimate actual flows are below the theoretical ceiling.
Oil routed from Yanbu toward Europe still must cross Egypt via the Sumed pipeline, which has a capacity of just 2.5 million barrels per day. Sumed flows have surged by about 150 percent since the war began, but its limited capacity constrains European supply.
Iran has targeted Petroline’s geoeconomic importance. An Iranian drone strike on a pumping station in April knocked 700,000 barrels a day offline. Saudi Aramco restored the line to full capacity within three days—a reassuring repair time, but the attack itself underscores vulnerability.
Another bypass runs through the United Arab Emirates. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) links Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman and has a capacity just under 2 million barrels per day, making it the only major route that exits the Gulf directly into the Indian Ocean. Adcop was also targeted: Iranian drone strikes on Fujairah on March 3, 14 and 16 set storage tanks ablaze and suspended loadings. Adcop provides diversification for the UAE but does not eliminate the targeting risk.
Other Gulf producers are worse off. Iraq’s pre-war exports of about 3.4 million barrels per day flowed almost entirely from Basra through Hormuz. A northern pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey was reopened in September 2025 after a 2½-year halt, with flows ramping to 250,000 barrels per day by March—only a fraction of Iraq’s lost volumes.
Kuwait is in a tougher position. Pre-war crude exports of around 2 million barrels per day all exited via Hormuz. Kuwait has no pipeline alternative and declared force majeure in March, later extending it on April 20, saying it could not meet contractual obligations even if Hormuz reopened. Repairing damage to production and ramping output will take months.
Qatar’s crude exports were smaller—about 0.6 million barrels per day pre-war, all via the strait—but its vulnerability centers on gas. Ras Laffan’s 77 million tonne LNG capacity is the world’s largest, supplying roughly 19 percent of global LNG trade. There is no alternative to shipping that gas through Hormuz.
Iran has its own Hormuz bypass: a 1,000-kilometre pipeline from Goreh at the head of the Gulf to a terminal at Jask on the Gulf of Oman, designed for 1 million barrels per day. In practice, sanctions and unfinished terminal infrastructure have kept throughput far below design. The US Energy Information Administration estimated under 70,000 barrels per day flowed in summer 2024, with loadings stopping entirely that September. Kpler reports only a single tanker around two million barrels has loaded at Jask in the war so far.
Calls for more pipelines are understandable, but they are not a simple solution. Replicating Hormuz in pipelines would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take a decade or more to build. Even then, new pipelines and terminals at Yanbu, Fujairah or elsewhere would be as vulnerable to drones and attacks as the facilities they aim to replace. (The Conversation)
