Saudi Arabia, Opec’s biggest producer, has restarted operations at its East-West Pipeline and could resume exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu later on Tuesday.
The pipeline was pumping at a low rate, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Drone attacks forced the country to shut the 1,200km pipeline on September 13, halting crude loadings at Yanbu.
Saudi Arabia has since ramped up oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. Over the weekend, it loaded seven super tankers with a capacity of 14 million barrels of oil from its export terminals in the Gulf in “the clearest sign yet of the export shift back towards Hormuz”, Noureldeen Al Hammoury, chief market strategist at Equiti Group, told The National. He cited satellite data from the EU's Sentinel system.
“This surge in Gulf loadings helped push Brent crude below $100 per barrel for the first time in recent weeks, settling around $100 on September 21,” he said.
Brent, the benchmark for two thirds of the world's oil, was trading down 2.52 per cent to $97.81 a barrel at 2.19pm UAE time on Tuesday, while West Texas Intermediate, the gauge that tracks US crude, slipped 3.11 per cent to $89.5 per barrel.
