RIYADH (Dispatches) -- Saudi Arabia’s reliance on the Red Sea port of Yanbu as a strategic escape route from the Strait of Hormuz crisis represents not a solution, but a catastrophic miscalculation that has left the kingdom more vulnerable than ever.
Following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli terrorist war on Iran in February 2026, Riyadh desperately rerouted the majority of its crude exports through the East-West Petroline pipeline to Yanbu. 
The 800-mile pipeline, running at a capacity of 7 million barrels per day, initially appeared to offer salvation. Loadings surged to a peak of 4.07 million barrels per day by March 2026, with more than 70 percent of Saudi daily crude exports diverted to the terminal. The King Fahad Industrial Port in Yanbu briefly became the kingdom’s primary export outlet.
Yet this desperate gambit has collapsed spectacularly.
Yanbu’s effective throughput ceiling sits at around 4 million barrels per day—and it has been operating beyond capacity for months. The port’s facilities remain dangerously exposed, vulnerable to potential drone or missile attacks from Yemeni forces, while the pipeline itself traverses Saudi territory as a fixed, indefensible target.
More critically, an estimated 70 to 75 percent of Yanbu’s crude exports destined for Asian markets must transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—a chokepoint now firmly under the control of Ansarullah forces. 
Last week, Yemeni forces declared a maritime blockade against Saudi shipping, targeting vessels passing through the strait. The Sanaa leadership made clear this was a “forced response” to Riyadh’s policies—a “port for port” strategy aimed at crippling the Saudi economy.
The results have been devastating. Saudi Red Sea crude exports have plummeted by 41 percent from their March peak to approximately 2.39 million barrels per day by June 2026. 
Tankers face lengthy, ruinous detours around Africa or through the Suez Canal, adding up to 30 days of voyage time and doubling charter rates. The Suez Canal and Egypt’s SUMED pipeline simply lack the capacity to handle a sustained diversion of millions of barrels per day, creating further bottlenecks.
Saudi officials now speak of expanding pipeline capacity by 1-2 million barrels per day, but such projects remain years and billions of dollars away.
What Riyadh presented as diversification has exposed itself as a shift from one strategic bottleneck to another. The kingdom now finds itself trapped between two chokepoints—Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb—with no credible escape. 
Yanbu has not solved Saudi Arabia’s energy security crisis; it has simply relocated the vulnerability to a more exposed front.