Saudi Pipeline Back at 7M Barrels Daily After Attacks

Three supertankers carrying millions of barrels of crude have exited the Strait of Hormuz, the latest sign that a precarious ceasefire between the United States and Iran is holding after months of disruption caused by Washington and Israel’s war on Iran. The vessels’ movement through the waterway, which handles roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, comes as energy markets continue to absorb the shock of a conflict that Tehran met with a blockade, sending prices soaring and exposing the fragility of the world’s energy arteries.

Shipping data from the London Stock Exchange Group shows the Liberia-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier Serifos and the China-flagged Cospearl Lake and He Rong Hai left the Hormuz Passage trial anchorage on Saturday. Each ship can carry two million barrels. The Serifos, chartered by Thailand’s PTT and loaded with Saudi and Emirati crude in early March, is expected to reach Malaysia’s Malacca Port later this month. Malaysian authorities had sought Iranian clearance for seven such vessels, underscoring how even neutral third countries were forced to negotiate with Tehran to keep trade moving during the fighting.

The war that began at the end of February inflicted immediate pain on global energy supplies. Iran’s decision to block the strait was a direct response to American and Israeli strikes that rapidly escalated into a broader campaign. Oil prices surged as tanker traffic slowed and insurance costs spiked. The resumption of traffic now offers some relief, yet officials and analysts describe the truce as tenuous at best. A US delegation recently left Pakistan without securing a broader understanding with Iran, while public remarks from Vice President JD Vance after talks ended without agreement highlighted the gap between Washington’s demands and Tehran’s position. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has continued to boast about the pressure campaign, appearing with a map of the Middle East and declaring that “we strangled them and have more to do.” Such statements do little to inspire confidence in the durability of any pause.

The conflict’s economic ripples extended beyond the strait. Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday that its East-West pipeline has been restored to full capacity of approximately seven million barrels per day after sustaining damage in attacks during the war. The kingdom’s Ministry of Energy credited Saudi Aramco’s rapid repairs and the broader Saudi energy system’s resilience. Production at the offshore Manifa field has also returned to 300,000 barrels per day. Work continues, however, to restore the inland Khurais field, where output fell by 300,000 barrels per day. These attacks on Saudi infrastructure, widely attributed to Iranian retaliation or proxies, illustrated how quickly a conflict centered on Iran could engulf the Gulf’s oil infrastructure and threaten the global economy.

While the war rattled supplies from the Persian Gulf, the United States has continued to pump at record levels. American crude production exceeded 13.6 million barrels per day last year, making the US the world’s top producer. Much of that growth stems from hydraulic fracturing and other advanced drilling techniques that have transformed shale fields across the country. In places like Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg basin, companies such as Chevron are deploying artificial intelligence, massive volumes of water, and complex steel infrastructure to extract more oil with fewer wells. Republican administrations, including both terms of President Donald Trump, have encouraged this expansion through permissive leasing and regulatory policies. The contrast is stark: while American drillers benefit from high prices and friendly politics at home, the war their government helped launch inflicted real damage on energy security elsewhere.

The ceasefire is already being priced into global markets. Morgan Stanley analysts have identified several Chinese stocks that were punished during the height of Middle East tensions and could now rebound. Companies exposed to shipping, energy, and commodities trade stand to gain if the fragile calm holds. Yet investors remain wary. The memory of recent supply shocks, damaged Saudi facilities, and the very public insistence by Israeli leaders that more military action may follow suggests any recovery could prove short-lived.

The events of the past two months have laid bare the high cost of escalation. A chokepoint that the world cannot afford to lose was closed in response to a war that was sold in Washington and Jerusalem as limited and necessary. Instead it triggered a cascade of attacks, higher fuel costs that hit consumers from Asia to Europe, and urgent diplomatic scrambling that has yet to produce a durable agreement. Malaysian refiners waiting for their crude, Thai energy firms chartering tankers, and Saudi engineers racing to repair pipelines all paid a price for decisions made far from their borders.

As the Serifos and its sister ships head toward their destinations, the question hanging over the Gulf is whether this fragile truce represents a genuine off-ramp or merely a pause before the next round of violence. With Netanyahu signaling unfinished business and the United States still pressing for concessions that Iran has so far refused, the tankers may be moving again, but the underlying tensions that closed the strait remain dangerously unresolved. Global energy markets, already strained, cannot withstand much more of this volatility. The coming weeks will reveal whether diplomacy or renewed conflict will define the next chapter in the region’s oil economy.