Saudi Pipeline Outage Pushes Brent Crude Past $107 Amid Fresh Attacks
Brent crude futures touched a session high of $108.43 on Tuesday after fresh attacks on Saudi Arabian energy infrastructure left the kingdom’s East-West Pipeline offline. Energy markets and industrial buyers face mounting supply threats as regional transport routes experience severe disruptions following coordinated strikes by Iran-backed Houthi forces.
Goldman Sachs warns Brent could top $120 as regional output deficits persist
Trading data showed Brent futures up 6 cents at $105.74 a barrel at 1301 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rose 27 cents to $101.66 a barrel after hitting a peak of $104.21 earlier in the session. The pipeline strike threatens up to 4% of global oil supply, with buyers and traders warning that Saudi Arabia could exhaust its exportable crude within days unless operations resume. Repair assessments cited by Goldman Sachs range from “very soon” to eight weeks.
Commodity vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped to four on Monday, down from 10 a day earlier, as maritime security risks escalated across key Gulf transport corridors. Oman’s Maritime Security Centre confirmed that the Panama-flagged oil tanker ‘El Gaia’ was towed to an Omani port after an engine room fire sparked by an attack. Concurrently, Gulf Arab states postponed planned discussions with Iran as geopolitical tensions intensified.
The latest infrastructure damage compounds ongoing energy shocks stemming from the conflict involving Iran that began on February 28, which previously restricted transit through a waterway carrying roughly a fifth of global oil supplies.
