Under Threat, Saudi Arabia Reroutes Oil Exports Yet Again

Saudi Arabia, long the world’s largest oil exporter, has spent the last six months improvising how to get its crude to the world.

In its latest workaround, Saudi Arabia has significantly cut back on shipping oil via the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the southern end of the Red Sea amid attacks claimed by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militants.

Instead, the kingdom is aggressively moving oil north in the Red Sea, via ships that unload crude at a pipeline in Egypt that shuttles it to the Mediterranean Sea, analysts say, even though that convoluted route is costlier and takes weeks longer for oil to reach markets in Asia.

It’s the second time that Saudi Arabia has been forced to find a new route since the war in Iran effectively eliminated its go-to transit point in the Persian Gulf: the Strait of Hormuz.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/business/saudi-oil-houthis-iran.html