Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry said it had restored full pumping capacity through the East–West pipeline, returning about 700,000 barrels per day lost to Iranian attacks. However, two crucial sites remain fully or partially offline, with a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran in place.
Around 300,000 bpd at the offshore Manifa field was restored, the ministry told the Saudi Press Agency. It added that work was continuing to restore 300,000 bpd at the large Khurais oilfield. The timetable for full resumption will be announced later, the ministry said.
The updates come as Gulf nations move to rebuild damaged energy installations during the two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan on April 7. The window offers a narrow opportunity to repair damaged infrastructure before the fragile truce, which is already under strain, potentially breaks down. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow, has been largely blocked by Iran since the war began in late February following US and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory.
On April 9, Saudi Arabia provided the first public accounts of damage to the kingdom's energy sector. Numerous sites were struck, including pumping stations on the East–West pipeline, the Manifa and Khurais production plants, and refineries at Jubail, Ras Tanura, Yanbu and Riyadh. Among the most significant facilities hit was Satorp at Jubail, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies processing 465,000 bpd and one of the world's largest export refining platforms. Also hit was Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia's largest refinery at 550,000 bpd capacity, which was attacked early in the war and closed for 16 days before restarting production.
The Samref in Yanbu, a 400,000 bpd Aramco-ExxonMobil joint venture, was also hit by a drone on March 19. Processing plants at Juaymah in Eastern Province were also targeted, disrupting liquefied petroleum and natural gas liquid exports. One person was killed and seven were injured in the attacks, the ministry said.
Khurais, one of Saudi Aramco's largest onshore fields with a production capacity of around 1.2 million bpd, has been previously targeted. In September 2019, drone and cruise missile strikes on Khurais and the Abqaiq processing plant knocked out around 5.7 million bpd of Saudi output, more than 5 per cent of global supply at the time, sending oil prices surging by the most in a single session in decades.
The scale of the repair challenge extends beyond Saudi Arabia. Ras Laffan in Qatar, the world's largest LNG complex, is unlikely to return to full capacity before the end of August at the earliest, with Iranian strikes having destroyed two of its trains, removing around 17 per cent of the country's export capacity from the market for years.
Qatar is reported to be mobilising engineers ahead of a planned partial resumption, with Japanese contractor Chiyoda also considering resuming construction work on the North Field East expansion, though analysts say full structural recovery in regional supply remains contingent on the ceasefire holding.
