Iran struck Saudi Arabia oil pipeline just hours after ceasefire, source says

Published 08 Apr, 2026 10:44pm 2 min read

Iran attacked Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline just hours after a ceasefire ‌was agreed to pause the Iran war, an industry source told Reuters on Wednesday, hitting its only crude oil export route since hostilities began.

Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, currently its only outlet for exporting crude oil, was hit in an Iranian attack while ​other facilities in the kingdom were also targeted, an industry source told Reuters on Wednesday.

The pipeline ​was diverting around 7 million barrels per day (bpd) from the kingdom’s oil heartland in the ⁠east to the Red Sea port of Yanbu after Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, trapping ​huge volumes of oil and gas in the Gulf and sending prices skyrocketing.

Flows through the pipeline are expected to ​be affected, the source said, adding damage was being assessed. That could exacerbate what experts have called the world’s worst energy crisis.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Wednesday that it had hit several targets across the region with ​missiles and drones, including what the IRGC called oil facilities of US companies in Yanbu.

The exact timing of ​the attack was not immediately clear, nor was the extent of any damage or the impact on the pipeline’s operations.

The Saudi ‌government communications ⁠office and pipeline operator Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

The United States and Iran on Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan meant to suspend a six-week-old war that has killed thousands, spread across the Middle East and caused unprecedented energy market disruption.

Attacks on other Gulf countries were ​not halted despite the agreement.

The ​Kuwaiti army said that ⁠an intensified wave of Iranian attacks had targeted the country since 0800 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), adding drone attacks caused extensive damage to oil facilities, power plants ​and water desalination plants.

The United Arab Emirates said it was dealing with Iranian ​missile and drone ⁠attacks and Bahrain reported that an Iranian attack damaged houses in the Sitra area.

Aramco uses about 2 million bpd of the East-West Pipeline’s capacity domestically, leaving roughly 5 million bpd for export.

Yanbu loadings averaged a near-capacity ⁠4.6 million ​bpd in the week starting March 23, shipping data showed.

The pipeline ​had left the kingdom as a relative winner from the strait’s closure, with a Reuters analysis showing its March estimated oil proceeds were ​higher than a year earlier.

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