Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, a critical 1,200 km conduit with capacity recently expanded toward 7 million barrels per day, has become central to global oil supply dynamics amid the U.S.-Iran conflict and Hormuz disruptions, rerouting roughly 4–5.8 million barrels daily to Yanbu on the Red Sea. The September 10–11, 2026 drone strikes from Iraqi territory—widely linked to Iran-aligned militias—damaged pumping stations, forced a precautionary shutdown, and triggered Brent spikes above $110 before partial flows resumed by late September and reached 5.8 million barrels by early October. These events underscore the pipeline’s role in mitigating chokepoint risks while exposing Saudi Aramco’s export flexibility to proxy attacks, with ongoing Houthi Red Sea advances and militia threats sustaining elevated volatility in energy benchmarks and trader focus on repair timelines and renewed strike probabilities.