Saudi Arabia Plans to Expand Capacity of Pipeline Bypassing Strait of Hormuz / Saudi Arabia May Use Older Pipeline to Boost Capacity / Saudi Arabia Seized This Pipeline After Saddam Hussein's 1990 Invasion of Kuwait

Saudi Arabia today announced plans to increase the capacity of its East-West strategic pipeline, which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and has a nominal capacity of 7 million barrels per day. However, its current operational capacity is likely to have dropped to around 6 million barrels per day after an attack in September knocked out a pumping station.

Bloomberg columnist Xavier Blass wrote: Geopolitics of oil pipelines: Saudi Arabia has announced today its plans to increase the capacity of the strategic east-west pipeline; The pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and its nominal capacity is 7 million barrels per day. However, its current operating capacity is likely to be around 6 million bpd after an attack in September knocked out a pumping station.

According to "Select" report; It is further stated in this article: Saudi Aramco can increase the transmission capacity by 1.2 million barrels per day in the next 7 to 8 weeks by using an existing natural gas pipeline and making changes to transport crude oil.

Riyadh has not published more details about this. However, the pipeline must be re-dedicated to natural gas transmission by May; Because Saudi Arabia needs gas to fuel its power plants in the summer months.

My hypothesis is that this pipeline may be the old 48" IPSA pipeline; A pipeline of about 1,500 kilometers was built in the 1980s and transported Iraqi oil through Saudi Arabia. This pipeline runs almost parallel to the east-west pipeline; It starts from pumping station number 3 and continues until near Yanbu.

After Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Saudi Arabia seized this pipeline and later it was used to transfer gas within the framework of the Saudi Master Gas System.

In the long term, the Saudi authorities have said that they plan to increase the capacity of transferring oil through the east-west pipeline to about 10 million barrels per day in the next 2-3 years. This increase in capacity will be done primarily through increased pumping capacity, not through the construction of additional pipelines.