Two months into the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to most commercial shipping. Vessel traffic has collapsed to a fraction of pre-war levels, and the series of ceasefires, blockades, and re-closures since February 28 has failed to restore confidence among tanker operators. The strait, which normally handles about 20 million barrels of crude and oil products daily—along with roughly one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports—has become a bottleneck of historic proportions.
For decades, Gulf states have drawn up plans to reduce their dependence on this narrow waterway. Those workarounds are now being tested as never before. The existing bypass infrastructure—primarily pipelines across Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—is delivering between 3.5 million and 5.5 million barrels per day of crude capacity. But this is far from enough to replace the lost throughput through Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia's Petroline Under Fire
The most critical pipeline in the region is Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, known as Petroline. Built during the 1980s Tanker War, when Iran and Iraq attacked merchant vessels in the Gulf, it was expanded to a 7 million barrel-per-day emergency ceiling in 2019. However, the loading terminals at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast were never designed for such volumes. Analysts tracking tanker traffic estimate that actual flows remain below the theoretical ceiling. Oil bound for Europe must still transit Egypt via the Sumed pipeline, which has a capacity of just 2.5 million barrels per day. Although Sumed flows have surged by 150% since the war began, this remains a binding constraint on European supply.
Iran has recognized Petroline's geoeconomic importance. In April, an Iranian drone strike on a pumping station knocked 700,000 barrels per day offline. Saudi Aramco restored full capacity within three days, but the attack underscored the vulnerability of even the most critical infrastructure.
UAE's Adcop Pipeline Also Targeted
The other major bypass runs through the United Arab Emirates. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) connects Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, with a capacity of just under 2 million barrels per day. It is the only major pipeline that exits the Gulf directly into the Indian Ocean. But it too has been targeted. Iranian drone strikes on Fujairah on March 3, 14, and 16 set storage tanks ablaze and suspended loadings. While Adcop offers some diversification for the UAE, it does not solve the targeting problem.
The situation is worse for other Gulf producers. Iraq's pre-war crude exports of 3.4 million barrels per day went almost entirely through Basra and Hormuz. A northern pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey was reopened in September 2025 after a two-and-a-half-year halt, with flows reaching 250,000 barrels per day in March. But this volume pales in comparison to what Iraq has lost.
Kuwait has no pipeline alternative at all. Its pre-war exports of around 2 million barrels per day all exited through Hormuz. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation declared force majeure in March, suspending delivery contracts, and extended it on April 20, stating it could not meet obligations even if Hormuz reopened. Rebuilding Kuwait's production base will take months.
Qatar's vulnerability is different. Its pre-war crude exports were smaller, at about 0.6 million barrels per day, all via Hormuz. But the real story is gas. Qatar's 77 million tonne LNG capacity at Ras Laffan supplies roughly 19% of global LNG trade. There is no alternative to shipping this gas through the strait.
Iran itself built a Hormuz bypass: a 1,000-kilometer pipeline from Goreh to Jask on the Gulf of Oman, designed for 1 million barrels per day. But sanctions and unfinished terminal infrastructure have kept actual throughput at a fraction of design. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that in summer 2024, under 70,000 barrels per day were flowing. Loadings stopped altogether that September. According to Kpler, only a single tanker—around two million barrels—has loaded at Jask during the war.
The call for more pipelines is understandable, but it is no panacea. Replicating Hormuz's capacity in pipelines would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take a decade. And new pipelines and terminals at Yanbu, Fujairah, or elsewhere would be no harder to reach with a drone than the old ones. The crisis has exposed the limits of infrastructure diversification in a conflict zone.
For Asian economies heavily reliant on Gulf energy, the implications are severe. Japan, South Korea, India, and China all depend on Hormuz for a significant share of their oil and LNG imports. The disruption has already driven up prices and forced governments to tap strategic reserves. As the war drags on, the search for alternatives—both within the Gulf and beyond—will only intensify.
