There are three pipelines operating now to take oil around the Hormuz blockage.
The East-West Crude Oil Pipeline (Petroline) in Saudi Arabia, and the UAE’s ADCOP pipeline and the Iraq Kirkuk–Ceyhan (Turkey) Pipeline.
The Iraq Turkey pipelin is at an initial ~250k bpd but could ramp over the next month or two to 400k-650k bpd.
Saudi Yanbu Terminal and Export Optimizations and Minor Petroline Tweaks. This could provide a +0.5–1 mb/d potential export uplift. Terminal and jetty constraints currently limit full pipeline use. This enhances Red Sea access without new builds. There could be continued Gulf field curtailments.
There is early Iraq Basra–Haditha Pipeline Work. Many of the pipelines have fragile politics like revenue sharing issues between Iraq and Kurds.
The Iraq Basra–Haditha is in the planning and early construction phase. There are no flows yet but could reach full 2.25–2.5 mb/d planned. There could be late 2026 or early 2027 with some early flows. It will take 1-2 years to get to full production if things go right.
It links southern (Hormuz-locked) Basra fields westward to multiple outlets (Ceyhan, Syria Baniyas, Jordan Aqaba/Red Sea). $1.5B allocated.
UAE ADCOP Expansion is likely happening. This would add +0.5–1+ mb/d (target ~3 mb/d total in combination with existing).
The Iraq Pipeline through Saudi Arabia, known as IPSA was built in the mid-1980s to give Iraq an export route outside the Arabian Gulf risk zone, it ran 1,650km from southern Iraqi oil fields to Yanbu, with a design capacity of 1.65 million bpd. It was closed in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. There are political and other challenges to restarting.
Broader corridors
The search for alternatives has now widened beyond pipelines. Broader corridors, incorporating rail, road, pipelines, electricity, and data, are designed as systems capable of moving goods and energy without passing through a single maritime chokepoint. One of the more ambitious proposals is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).
Unloading goods in the Gulf and moving them by rail through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to European markets could save 5-7 days compared with shipping routes. More importantly, the corridor offers an overland route for containerised trade that does not depend on either Hormuz or Bab al-Mandeb, the Red Sea chokepoint that became dangerous throughout 2024. The plan also includes electricity cables, a hydrogen pipeline, and high-speed fibre-optic links, making the corridor not just a trade route but an infrastructure spine.
IMEC builds on the long-delayed GCC Railway, a project conceived in 2008 to link all six Gulf Cooperation Council states through a network of national and transnational lines. Originally estimated at $250bn for 2,117km of track, it has missed multiple deadlines. It would likely take until 2030 to complete all lines.
Incremental expansions
In the near term, the most plausible path is likely to be incremental expansion of existing national bypass systems, including expansion of the East-West pipeline within Saudi territory, upgrades to Yanbu terminal capacity, a second ADCOP pipe within the UAE, and the construction of additional storage and bunkering at Fujairah, rather than rapid construction of ambitious new cross-border corridors.
These projects require only domestic decisions and could feasibly deliver results within 3-5 years. They would push the combined bypass ceiling toward 12-13 million bpd, a meaningful improvement on the current 8-8.5 million.
The more ambitious multimodal corridors require changes in politics but the crisis is motivating some of this. The Iraq options could add another 2-3 million bpd.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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It is a game, who will last longer? Both sides are hurting. Iran has to pay their employees somehow, embargo hits them a lot. Western economy is also hit a lot with indirect expenses (higher oil costs, higher expenses in manufacturing, transit and in other areas,… But dealing with Iran once for all or at least for next 10 – 20 years could stabilize the Middle east in the long run and stop all their proxies,…
Iran wants the strait open. America wants the strait open. The voters in Texas want the strait open. If Trump just declares that Iran’s nuclear research has been demolished (Again) and goes home, everybody wins. Whats the problem here?
Suicidal-nuclear-armed-ayatollah.
Just like Suicidal-nuclear-armed-Saddam back in the day. Only that didn’t work out.
Pipelines don’t move around, are thousands miles long and carry flammable and explosive stuff. Is Iran wants to prevent oil from moving they can send drones and ballistic missiles to hit the pipelines.
The solution has to be political.
Is not technical nor military.
The solution can be military of you guard the pipelines.
No. They could not protect military bases, they can’t protect thousands of miles of pipes
The pipes in Saudi Arabia, such as the East-West pipeline, are buried and easily repaired if they are struck. The only vulnerable parts of oil pipelines are the pumping stations. Those are point targets that can be defended.
Again, they destroyed dozens of military bases. Ukraine is doing the same strategy in Russia. Oil infrastructure is not defensible against swarms of drones.
The swarms of drones can fly two ways: Iranian pipelines, Iranian refineries, Iranian storage tanks, Iranian power infrastructure. If you say Saudi Arabia cannot defend their pipelines the same is true of Iran.
Sure,
But if you destroy every oil infrastructure is not that you win. You are simply making oil less available. The one that remains becomes more expensive, fewer can afford it and the world economy shrinks (even when YOU are selling the oil).
Iran economy is small and marginal, US economy is big and relies on selling goods and services internationally. If people everywhere pays more for oil they will have less money to buy goods and services so US economy will shrink more and it is a problem for US debts. Less developed and insulated economies are weak in absolute term but in term of differential wealth they have far less to lose than more developed economies.
In that scenario, won’t gas prices just keep rising along with inflation during those 3 to 5 years and never come back down? If hat’s the case, it would seem easier to just resolve what’s going on and get the strait reopened.