The Strait of Hormuz seen by NASA's MODIS instrument on 2 December 2020, with Iran to the north and the Musandam peninsula of Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south · NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (a NASA image)

Article · 2026-09-22 · 7 min read · Oil and gas · Futures

The Hormuz bypass pumps again as Iran floats a seven-day reopening

Reuters' sources say Saudi Arabia's East-West line restarted at a low rate, with a full return six to eight weeks away and one cargo loading at Yanbu for China; Iran's semi-official Fars agency called the seven-day reports untrue within hours; Brent fell to a two-week low, as Reuters reported, and seven supertankers had already loaded inside the Gulf.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

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What happened on Tuesday

Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West pipeline on Tuesday 22 September and could resume crude exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu later the same day, Reuters reported, citing three sources briefed on the matter. The line was pumping at a low rate after the restart, two of the sources said. It will go back to supplying crude to Aramco's refineries on the Red Sea coast, one source said, and one cargo was scheduled to load at Yanbu on Tuesday, bound for China. Aramco was seeking to get the pumping rate back to 4 million barrels a day, that source said. A security source told the agency that reaching 40 percent of capacity would take a couple of days and a full restart six to eight weeks; a separate oil industry source put a return to full rates at up to six weeks. ^{[1, 2]}

Aramco itself has not spoken. It declined to comment to the Financial Times, whose report the Irish Times carried, and did not respond to NBC News, which said Bloomberg had reported the kingdom running tests to restart the line this week. Traders were already preparing for Saudi loadings by moving tankers to Egypt's Mediterranean port of Port Said for ship-to-ship transfers and to Sidi Kerir, two trading sources told Reuters. Sidi Kerir is where crude that enters Egypt's SUMED pipeline from the Red Sea comes out on the Mediterranean, the route Yanbu cargoes normally take to Europe, and Oilprice.com reported that Aramco had told European term customers last week that their October allocations would be zero while the line was down. ^{[16, 8, 1, 2, 25]}

The desk's study of 16 September set out what the line is: about 1,200 kilometres from the Abqaiq processing centre in the east to Yanbu on the Red Sea, with a capacity of up to 7 million barrels a day, and since the strait closed the main road for Saudi crude to reach a ship, carrying 4 to 5 million barrels a day in recent months by Al Jazeera's count, about 4 to 5 percent of the world's supply. The energy ministry said on 11 September, through the Saudi Press Agency, that the line had been shut down as a precaution following multiple attacks, and the foreign ministry said on 12 September that several drones launched from Iraq had caused injuries and some damage. The wires do not agree on the date of the shutdown: Reuters' copies carry 11 September and 13 September, and Bloomberg 10 September; the ministry's own statement of the 11th is the date this site keeps. ^{[20, 18, 19, 1, 2, 17]}

The bar the restart is measured against is the one Bloomberg reported on 16 September, when a person familiar with the matter said Aramco was working to bypass the damaged section and aimed to restore about half the line's capacity within days and its full capability in about six weeks. Six days on, the line is running at a low rate, and the sources' own clock for a full return now reads six to eight weeks. ^{[17, 1]}

The seven days, and the denial

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that Iran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports, and that Iran's delegation to the UN General Assembly has full authority to revive diplomacy with the United States. The Times of Israel, carrying agency copy, quoted the official's condition: 'The US needs to announce that it wants to resolve the issue diplomatically, make that official, and then agree on a timeline for how the process will move forward.' Japan's Kyodo carried a similar account from a senior official, The National reported, with the words that there is 'a possibility of moving toward an agreement' if Washington shows 'seriousness and commitment'. ^{[5, 6, 7]}

Within hours the offer was disowned at home. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said Iranian sources had described the reports as unreliable and untrue, NBC News reported. Fox News Digital's live coverage set out the conditions Tehran put to Washington on Tuesday as the immediate lifting of the naval blockade, the release of frozen Iranian assets and an end to the war across all 'resistance' fronts, reported that the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had met the US special envoy Steve Witkoff and conveyed them, and carried the Iranian armed forces' general staff dismissing Trump's remarks as propaganda that 'does not change the calculations of power'. The parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Trump 'cannot impose his power on the Iranian people and its armed forces', and a Revolutionary Guards spokesman, Hossein Mohebi, said Iran would 'undoubtedly intensify' its response to new American attacks, the Times of Israel reported. ^{[8, 12, 6]}

The two things Iran asks to be lifted have dates. The United States announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports on 13 April, lifted it on 18 June and reinstated it on 14 July; Iran has held the strait closed since the war began on 28 February, apart from one day in April, and GlobalSecurity's daily log counted Tuesday as day 207. The same log records, from UK Maritime Trade Operations' advisories, that two vessels were struck in the strait on Monday 21 September, an inbound tanker hit by an unknown projectile with two crew lightly injured, and a gas carrier hit by debris, neither claimed by anyone. Ship tracking by MarineTraffic showed no more than 20 ships a day passing the strait over the past week, NBC reported. ^{[21, 22, 8]}

What Trump told the hall

President Trump, addressing the general debate of the 81st session on Tuesday morning, framed Iran as a choice. 'Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before,' he asked, 'or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy.' He said he believed a deal would be made 'right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to', and that Iran was 'waiting to see how I do in the midterm election', NBC News reported. The White House's own account of the address carries his line that he 'will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon'. Iran's delegation walked out during the speech, the Associated Press reported; the UN's video record of the address is linked below. ^{[9, 13, 11, 14]}

Afterwards he said the two sides had already met. Sitting with Ukraine's president later on Tuesday, Trump said his aides had held a three-hour meeting with Iranian officials that day, 'a very good meeting', with the envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner present, the Associated Press and NBC reported. Asked about the election, he said: 'I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn't even enter my mind.' Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said on NBC's Today programme that the United States was open to talking to Iran 'especially if it has the prospects of leading to something positive', and on Monday, asked about the Saudi pipeline, that 'we are working to see if this thing can be fixed'. ^{[11, 8, 10, 6, 12]}

The ships and the prices, as the sources report them

The oil moved before the words did. Aramco loaded about 14 million barrels of crude onto seven very large crude carriers inside the Gulf on Sunday 20 September, according to TankerTrackers.com data cited by Reuters, and JP Morgan analysts wrote that satellite data showed Saudi oil passing through the strait at an average of 2.9 million barrels a day over the previous six days, up from about 700,000 barrels a day in August. The kingdom has sold about 60 million barrels from its Ras Tanura terminal inside the strait for ship-to-ship loading at Sohar in Oman this month and next, Reuters reported on Monday; the desk's story of 17 September set out that route. ^{[15, 3, 4]}

Prices, as Reuters reported them: Brent crude for November delivery was down 2.11 dollars, or 2.1 percent, at 98.23 dollars a barrel at 1151 GMT on Tuesday, and West Texas Intermediate for October, the contract that expired on Tuesday, was down 2.48 dollars at 93.30, both at their lowest since 8 September; on Monday Brent had settled below 100 dollars for the first time since 9 September. The National put Brent at 97.81 dollars in the Gulf afternoon. Noureldeen Al Hammoury, chief market strategist at Equiti Group, told The National that the surge in Gulf loadings had helped push Brent below 100 dollars for the first time in recent weeks; Hamad Hussain of Capital Economics told Reuters that other obstacles, such as tolls and fees, may have to be overcome before a lasting solution is reached, and Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank said the fall had limits until more supply, above all refined products, actually came through the strait. ^{[24, 15, 3, 4]}

At the pump, the American average for regular gasoline was 4.475 dollars a gallon on Tuesday and diesel 6.528 dollars, the highest diesel average AAA has recorded, against 3.184 and 3.688 dollars a year earlier, according to AAA's daily survey; NBC reported the same figures. ^{[23, 8]}

Who it reaches

Saudi Aramco is not on this site's record, because it does not file with the SEC, so every path here is adjacent. Exxon Mobil is Aramco's partner in the refinery at Yanbu that the restarted line feeds, and, with Chevron, Occidental and ConocoPhillips, a producer whose crude sells at prices that move with the benchmarks Reuters reports. Valero, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66 refine the gasoline and diesel whose national averages AAA publishes. Frontline, DHT, International Seaways and Scorpio Tankers own the tankers that carry the crude Reuters and the tracker data describe leaving the Gulf. Delta, United, American and Southwest buy jet fuel refined from the same crude. Each company's file on this site carries its record. ^{[20, 15, 23, 4]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

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