Saudi Arabia resumes Yanbu oil loading after pipeline restart

Saudi Arabia resumes Yanbu oil loading after pipeline restart. Reuters Published September 30, 2026 Updated September 30, 2026 12: 03am.

Key points

• Drone attacks, which Saudi Arabia blamed on the Houthis, forced the kingdom to shut the pipeline on September 11, halting crude exports from Yanbu.
• State oil giant Saudi Aramco notified customers on Monday evening of its October loading schedule from Yanbu, an Asian refining source remarked.
• Crude inventories at the Yanbu terminal rose by roughly 1m barrels on Sept 22, the first build since the attack, according to Kpler.
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• Oil throughput on the pipeline is regarding 2m barrels per day, according to an industry source, and around 2.65m bpd according to ship-tracking firm Kpler.

Saudi Arabia has resumed oil tanker loadings from its Red Sea port of Yanbu after restarting operations on the East-West Pipeline, according to trade sources and shipping data, improving the outlook for oil exports from the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the resumption of Yanbu loadings, halted earlier this month after a drone attack on the pipeline, weighed on global oil rates on Monday as it went on to signs of rose flows from the Middle East, from which the US war with Iran has throttled oil shipments.

State oil giant Saudi Aramco notified customers on Monday evening of its October loading schedule from Yanbu, an Asian refining source remarked. The refiner loaded a cargo from Yanbu late last week.

Drone attacks, which Saudi Arabia blamed on the Houthis, forced the kingdom to shut the pipeline on September 11, halting crude exports from Yanbu. Pipeline operations resumed last Tuesday. Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Oil products are additionally being loaded, tracker states.

European Space Agency satellite pictures additionally pointed to a resumption of loading.

"ESA satellite imagery captured over the Red Sea on September 27 shows Saudi Arabia loading nearly 10 million barrels of crude oil at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz, " vessel-tracking firm TankerTrackers.com wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. Al Muajjiz is a terminal south of Yanbu.

"We additionally observed refined-product loadings. In total, we visually identified 40 tankers, regardless of their activity or proximity to these terminals."

Two trade sources separately estimated crude loadings from Yanbu at regarding two million barrels per day since last week.

Oil throughput on the pipeline is regarding 2m barrels per day, according to an industry source, and around 2.65m bpd according to ship-tracking firm Kpler. This is far short of the pipeline's 7m bpd capacity.

Throughput will climb to between 3m and 4m bpd over the next few days, Kpler remarked. A full return to the pre-attack rate of roughly 5.5m bpd could still take another month, it remarked in a note on Monday.

For context, the restart of crude loading at Yanbu continued to signs of rising Middle East oil shipments after a recovery in exports via the Strait of Hormuz.

Crude oil loadings at Egypt's Sidi Kerir resumed on Sept 22 after a 10-day hiatus, but tankers remain queued offshore as restrictions continue to limit access for much of the commercial fleet, Kpler remarked in the note.

Taken together, the developments around saudi Arabia resumes Yanbu oil loading after pipeline restart point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.