Saudi East-West pipeline flows restored to 5.8M bpd

Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman (pictured), announced on Tuesday that the East-West oil pipeline has restored its crude pumping capacity to 5.8 million barrels per day.

"Currently, 5.8 million barrels are passing through the (East–West) pipeline, while the directives focus on localizing everything related to the energy sector and working to combine the energy, industry, and mining systems into an integrated system," he said at the Made in GCC Forum & Exhibition in Bahrain.

The pipeline's crude exports were halted in September after drone attacks launched from Iraq. The site links the kingdom's eastern oilfields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, has a maximum capacity of roughly 7 million bpd, and is a key alternative route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.