Skip to content
The Rocket NewsAll the news that’s fit to launch
Headlines

Trump on his Court: a shell of their original selves. Mail ballots still go out. · Times/Siena: Democrats +9. The economy is his, and it is killing him. · Diesel $6.31. The Saudi pipeline is shut. Four percent of the world’s oil. · Sheinbaum: Mexico will not kneel. Three hundred thousand in the Zócalo. · Paco Baca: Fantas, hot dogs and red-cap populism

Hormuz

The East-West is shut. Four percent of the world’s oil. Yanbu is dark.

Houthis hit the pipeline that bypassed Hormuz. Loadings cancelled. Wright: days. Goldman: eight weeks.

The Rocket News · World Desk · Riyadh / YanbuSeptember 16, 2026 · 4 min read

An oil tanker in a narrow dusk strait between arid mountains, a distant column of smoke on the horizon. No figures in the frame.
An oil tanker in a narrow dusk strait between arid mountains, a distant column of smoke on the horizon. No figures in the frame.

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline is shut. It was the workaround when Hormuz closed: Abqaiq to Yanbu, oil to the Red Sea without the strait. Houthis hit it. Loadings at Yanbu are suspended. Riyadh cancelled some late-September cargoes to Europe. The World desk files a pipe that was supposed to be the answer, and is now the problem.

Up to 4 percent of world supply. Goldman: repairs from “very soon” to eight weeks. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC the oil should flow in days. Since Sept. 7, two Saudi vessels have used the Red Sea. The Houthis hold Bab el-Mandeb. Salalah did not sit. The maps stay in the drawer.

The shutdown risks keeping 4% of the world’s oil supply from reaching international markets.

Video

HOUTHIS Bleed SAUDI's OIL As East-West Pipeline RAVAGED · Times Now · Watch on Times Now

Diesel in America printed $6.31 this morning. The World desk files Wednesday as it is: a pipeline down, a strait closed, and a gallon that only goes up.

Wire and further reading: nytimes.com

Filed under World

Keep reading