The landscape off the coast of Yanbu on the Red Sea has completely changed in a matter of days. The area is now taken over by VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers), colossal supertankers capable of swallowing two million barrels of crude oil. They are not there just passing through; Its massive concentration responds to a single objective: to carry out the largest and most urgent evacuation of oil in recent times.
A fleet to the rescue of the market. To understand the magnitude of this rescue operation, just look at the figures provided Financial Times: What is happening is a real “flotilla of supertankers” sailing against the clock. About 30 of these giants head to Yanbu, when the usual thing is that only two arrive a month. The reason is that traffic in the Persian Gulf has come to a “stalemate” following the Iranian attacks.
The maritime tracking data it handles Bloomberg They give an idea of the urgency: in just 48 hours, at least 25 of these giants have headed to the Saudi port. We are talking about a fleet with room to load some 50 million barrels that, otherwise, would have no outlet. It is an essential escape valve right now. The blockade has already caused world production to fall by 6% and the plug is so large that neighbors like Iraq and Kuwait have had to start closing wells because, simply, they have run out of room in their tanks to store the oil.
The “sea bridge” to avoid Iran. How do these ships load oil if they do not enter the Gulf? The answer is in the desert, but the result is seen in the port. Saudi Arabia is using its East-West pipeline as a turnstile. The crude oil travels overland 1,200 kilometers to Yanbu, where the “army” of ships awaits it to distribute it to the world, especially China and India.
According to Wall Street Journal, This infrastructure has become “one of the most critical pieces of the world economy” overnight. The CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser, confirmed in this medium that they are reaching their maximum capacity: 7 million barrels per day flowing westward. Of them, 5 million are destined directly to be loaded on these supertankers for global markets.
The risk does not disappear, it just changes coordinates. But sailing to Yanbu is not a safe ride. As he warns Financial Times, The ships must now “challenge the notorious hotspot of Houthi attacks.” To leave for Asia, these supertankers have to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Although the Yemeni group had signaled a pause in its attacks, experts from EOS Risk They assure that the tankers continue to assume an “enormous risk”, since the area is within reach of Iranian missiles.
Even the port of Fujairah in the Emirates, which is also trying to act as an escape route, has already suffered damage from drone attacks last week. The message is clear: the alternative is less dangerous than Hormuz, but it is not immune to war.
The limits of the plan. The big question for markets is whether this armada of ships and desert pipelines can prevent economic collapse. The closure of Hormuz has taken 20 million barrels per day off the board and physical reality imposes its limits on the alternative route. On the one hand, there is a critical funnel in the port itself. According to data from the Argus Media agency, although the Saudi pipeline manages to transport up to 7 million barrels, the Yanbu terminals only have real capacity to load between 4 and 4.5 million a day on ships. Inevitably, supertankers will have to queue.
On the other hand, the distillate crisis looms. As experts cited by Middle East Eyethe East-West pipeline transports crude oil, not refined products. No matter how many ships fill up in Yanbu, markets like Europe are left without their vital supply of diesel and aviation fuel, which is usually processed in the unreachable refineries of the Middle East.
According to Sparta Commodities in statements to WSJwith this route only half of the problem has been “solved.” There are another 10 million barrels that are still trapped with no possible way out. Therefore, it is no longer “crazy” for a barrel to reach $200. The demand for oil is “inelastic”; the economy cannot stop consuming it from one day to the next, which generates brutal upward pressure.
The geopolitics of “the worse the better” While ships maneuver in the Red Sea, in Washington the focus is purely strategic. Donald Trump has made it clear that stopping Iran is the priority, even above the Price of gasoline. “We make a lot of money when prices rise,” the president even published on his social networks, emphasizing that the US, as a large producer, can afford a resistance that other countries do not have.
For its part, the historic opening of the IEA’s strategic reserves (400 million barrels) attempts to “Buy time”, but as analyst Javier Blas says, nothing replaces the real opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Imagen | Photo by Khristina Sergeychik on Unsplash
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