The shutdown of the East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia threatens the loss of 4% of global oil supplies

Due to the shutdown of the East-West oil pipeline by Saudi Arabia, which was attacked from abroad, the world market may lose approximately another 4 percent of its oil supply. Reuters writes about such consequences with reference to estimates from its own sources.

“Saudi Arabia will run out of oil reserves for export if its major pipeline to the Red Sea is not resumed in the coming days,” the material says. At the same time, according to one of the agency’s interlocutors, the necessary repairs to this key pipeline will take five to six weeks.

After the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed due to the US-Iran conflict, East-West allowed Saudi Arabia to avoid the worst consequences of export problems, although the country's oil production, according to the latest OPEC data, fell from 10.9 million barrels in February to 6.2 million in August. New circumstances could lead to a further collapse in supplies, as well as a continued rise in world oil prices, which last week already went well above $100 per barrel.