The Bypass Routes: Why Pipeline Alternatives to Hormuz Have Never Been Enough
Every serious analysis of Hormuz closure scenarios eventually arrives at the same question: how much oil can get out without using the strait? The answer, consistently, is not enough — and understanding why requires examining the bypass infrastructure that exists, the infrastructure that has been proposed, and the fundamental mismatch between pipeline capacity and the volumes the strait normally moves.
The numbers establish the problem. On a normal day, somewhere between 17 and 21 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products transit Hormuz. The combined nameplate capacity of all existing bypass pipelines is a fraction of that figure, and nameplate capacity is not operational capacity. The infrastructure must be maintained, staffed, protected, and in some cases reversed from its normal flow direction before it becomes useful in a closure scenario. The gap between what the strait moves and what the alternatives can handle does not close quickly.
Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, running from Abqaiq in the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, is the most significant bypass route in operation. At full capacity it can move around five million barrels per day, which represents a meaningful but incomplete fraction of Saudi export volumes. The pipeline has been underutilized for extended periods because it is more expensive to move oil to Yanbu and load it onto Red Sea tankers than to move it the shorter distance to Gulf terminals and through Hormuz. Bypassing the strait costs money. Producers use the bypass when the strait becomes unavailable or when the price differential justifies it. Under normal conditions, they do not.
The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, completed in 2012, runs from Habshan in the interior to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman coast, outside the strait. Its capacity is approximately 1.5 million barrels per day. Fujairah has been developed into a significant bunkering and storage hub precisely because of its position on the Hormuz-free side of the UAE coastline. The pipeline is well-maintained, regularly tested, and represents the most credible single piece of bypass infrastructure in the Gulf. It still handles only a fraction of UAE export volumes.
Iraq has no meaningful bypass capacity. Its oil exports move through the Gulf terminals at Basra, through the Turkish pipeline to Ceyhan, or through a combination of both. The Turkish pipeline’s throughput has been limited by political disputes between Baghdad and Ankara and by periodic shutdowns related to the Kurdish regional government. Iraqi oil is largely trapped by the geography of its production basins, which have no practical route to market that avoids both the Gulf and Turkey. In a Hormuz closure scenario, Iraqi export revenues collapse.
Iran, counterintuitively, is the country least exposed to a Hormuz closure it initiates. Its Caspian coast provides some export flexibility, its domestic consumption would continue regardless of export disruption, and its decision to close the strait would reflect a political calculation in which export revenues are already severely constrained by sanctions. Closing the strait hurts Iran. It hurts countries that depend on Iranian oil exports less than it hurts everyone else.
The proposed infrastructure projects that would expand bypass capacity deserve skepticism. Plans for expanded Saudi pipeline capacity toward Yanbu, for new UAE storage and loading facilities at Fujairah, and for various trans-Arabian pipeline schemes have circulated for decades. Some have been built. Many have not, because the economics of building infrastructure for a scenario that may never occur, or that may occur only briefly, are challenging. The cost of spare capacity is real. The benefit is probabilistic. Governments and companies build what they need for normal operations. Resilience infrastructure must be justified by threat assessment, not market demand.
The honest summary is that the bypass routes provide meaningful relief in a short closure, inadequate relief in an extended one, and no relief at all for countries — particularly in East Asia — whose supply chains cannot be rerouted to Red Sea or Mediterranean loading points without significant logistical disruption. The strait is not irreplaceable in the absolute sense. It is irreplaceable on the timescales that matter in an acute crisis.