UAE to Speed Up New Pipeline to Bypass Hormuz

With the elongated West Asian conflict disrupting maritime traffic across the Strait of Hormuz, Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is reported to have directed Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to fast-track construction of the West-East Pipeline as per Abu Dhabi Media Office.

The strait, in normal times, accounted for nearly a fifth of global oil and gas supplies.

Read alongside United Arab Emirate’s departure from OPEC and OPEC+ alliances earlier, the recent push around a novel major pipeline signals Emirati efforts to export crude oil without relying on the Strait of Hormuz exclusively.

The pipeline, expected to operationalise by the coming year, doubles UAE’s export capacity through Fujairah.

The upcoming pipeline will complement the already running Abu Dhabi ​Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP), also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline that can carry up to 1.8 million barrels connecting the Habshan oil field to the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman.

With Iran, and even America, calling for a closure of the strategic strait, West Asian nations have ramped up investments to diversify crude shipments to alternate maritime routes like the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.

Increasing salience of Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-km long East-West pipeline connecting oil fields near the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea port of Yanbu being a case in point.