With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, Saudi Arabia has activated the one piece of infrastructure built precisely for this moment. The East-West Pipeline — known as the Petroline — runs 1,200 kilometres from the Abqaiq processing complex in the Eastern Province across the Arabian Peninsula to Yanbu on the Red Sea. According to Engineering News-Record, it was constructed in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq War, after Riyadh first confronted the vulnerability of routing the bulk of its exports through Hormuz. In 2019, following Houthi drone strikes on Abqaiq, Aramco converted parallel natural gas liquids lines to carry crude oil, raising emergency capacity to 7 million barrels per day — a figure never tested at sustained flows until now. Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, as reported by Middle East Eye, confirmed it would hit full capacity within days, with Windward Maritime AI recording a 330% surge in Yanbu exports from pre-war levels.