Drone strikes halt Saudi East-West pipeline, tightening global oil supplies

A drone attack damaged Saudi Arabia's 1,200-km East-West (Petroline) pipeline, prompting a precautionary shutdown of a key conduit that carries about 4–5 million barrels per day to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. With potential repair times of five to six weeks and ongoing tensions around Hormuz, the outage adds risk to an already tight global oil market, though Yanbu stocks and other facilities could cushion only a limited period (roughly a week) of outages. The disruption follows broader flows being restricted by regional conflict and could push prices higher if the outage persists.