The uneasy situation in the area of the Strait of Hormuz has put the Red Sea port of Janbů on the front pages, where the 1,201-kilometer-long Saudi Arabian East-West oil pipeline, nicknamed simply Petroline, opens.
According to the state-owned company Saudi Aramco, these days it is approaching full shipping capacity, and while of course it cannot replace the Persian Gulf traffic, it is now the only quick detour.
The pipeline as an insurance policy against conflicts in the gulf
The Saudis built the pipeline in the 1980s in response to the Iraq-Iran war at the time, which threatened Gulf traffic much as it does today.
The mouth of the Petroline pipeline south of Janbů:
In practice, it is a double pipeline with a radius of 120 centimeters and 13 pumping stations that collect oil from the fields in the east of the country. The route of the pipeline can also be seen beautifully on satellite images of the Arabian Peninsula. Although the pipeline is underground, the surface trench is not covered by vegetation.
Supertankers are heading to Janbů
A lot of supertankers have headed to Janbů in recent days, but even this route is not completely without risk.
On the other hand, the East-West oil pipeline was attacked in the past by a regional ally of Iran – the Houthis from western Yemen. In May 2019, they sent seven drones targeting the pumping station in Afif.
Ropovod East-West (Petroline) na Open Infrastructure Map
In any case, the Saudi pipeline, which crosses the Arabian Peninsula from east to west, complements the 360-kilometer Habshan-Fujairah pipeline in the United Arab Emirates. Although it is much shorter, it can also help now, as it is a land bypass of the critical Strait of Hormuz.
Both pipelines and other local infrastructure can be found, for example, on the Open Infrastructure Map, which takes over information from the free OSM project.
