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Study · YANBU · 2026-09-24 · 8 min read · Oil and shipping · Futures

Missiles over Yanbu as Riyadh sells Asia 100 million barrels

What changed since 16 September: the East-West pipeline restarted on 22 September at a low rate with six to eight weeks to a full one; Iran offered to reopen the strait within seven days if the blockade ends and its president told the UN 'we did not bend the knee'; Reuters reports a phased deal under discussion in New York; and the IEA counts Gulf exports at half their pre-war level with 507 million barrels drawn from the world's stocks since February.

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 Thursday 24 September the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, Major General Turki al-Malki, announced that six ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis toward the cities of Taif and Yanbu had been intercepted and destroyed, that the air defenses had thwarted an attempt 'to target civilian facilities', and that the escalation 'will be dealt with firmly'; the civil defense directorate said the danger had passed in Yanbu, Jeddah, Tabuk, Mecca and Taif. Yanbu is the Red Sea terminal of the East-West pipeline, the subject of the first chapter of this series. The Houthis, the Associated Press reported, claimed they had fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at the kingdom's southwestern Jazan province; no damage was reported by either side. ^{[1, 2, 3]}

Oil rose. The National reported Brent at 107.93 dollars a barrel at 7:42 in the evening in the Emirates, up 4.71 percent on the day and 7.5 percent on the week, and West Texas Intermediate at 96.38; it gave three reasons, the indirect talks at the United Nations having 'yielded little progress', the statement by Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei that Iran would not 'negotiate or reopen the Strait of Hormuz until those conditions were met', and the missiles. Norbert Rucker of Julius Baer told the paper that 'the ever-looming risk of supply disruptions appears to be inflating a persistent risk premium'. By the close in New York, Yahoo Finance reported, crude futures were up more than 3 percent, off the day's highs after Reuters reported that American and Iranian negotiators were working on a phased agreement. ^{[4, 5]}

This is the second chapter of a series that opened on 16 September, when the pipeline had been shut for five days by the drone strikes of 10 and 11 September and Aramco was aiming to run half of it. What has changed since: Reuters reported on Tuesday 22 September that the pipeline had restarted, 'pumping at a low rate' by two sources' account, with a security source putting 40 percent of capacity a couple of days away and a full restart at six to eight weeks, and one cargo scheduled to load at Yanbu that day for China; three of the line's eleven pumping stations were damaged. The National reported on Wednesday that the line 'is still not fully operational' and that since mid-September the kingdom has sold nearly 100 million barrels, about a day of world demand, to refiners in China, India, Japan and South Korea for October and November delivery through the Strait of Hormuz, with Aramco offering to manage the shipping itself. ^{[6, 7]}

The record

The diplomacy has three dated statements. On 22 September a senior Iranian official told Kyodo that Iran had offered to reopen the strait within seven days if the United States eased its military pressure and lifted the blockade of Iranian ports, an offer delivered through mediators six days earlier, with 'a possibility of moving toward an agreement' if Washington showed 'seriousness and commitment'; Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC the same day that the United States was 'open' to meetings. On 23 September President Masoud Pezeshkian told the General Assembly, after the American delegation walked out, that 'yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee', that Iran was 'ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force', and that it would not give up its right to navigation 'even in our own waters'. ^{[8, 9]}

On 24 September Reuters reported from New York that negotiators were exploring a phased path out of a war now nearly seven months old. A senior Iranian official told the agency: 'One way forward would be to solve the crisis in stages. The first would be to end the blockade and reopen Hormuz'; the arrangement would be temporary and could unlock frozen assets; regional sources said Tehran would move its demand for transit fees, which the Gulf states reject, into a side attachment. Two Iranian sources, two regional officials and two Western diplomats told Reuters that neither side wanted to be the first to give up its leverage. Dennis Ross, a former American negotiator, said 'the blockade is what's really squeezing the Iranians. It's strangling them,' and put the chance of an agreement before the 3 November midterm elections at 30 percent; another Iranian official said 'our fingers are on the trigger'. ^[10]

The physical record is the International Energy Agency's. Its September report, dated 11 September, estimates total oil exports from the Gulf countries in August 'around 13 mb/d, nearly half their pre-war level', with exports of refined products and LPG down 3.7 million barrels a day; world supply fell to 100.1 million barrels a day in August and the agency expects 100.7 for the year, 5.7 million below 2025, with demand down 2.5 million; and 'global observed oil inventories plunged by a further 95 mb in August, taking cumulative draws since February to 507 mb, or 2.8 mb/d on average.' The report notes that diesel prices in the United States passed 200 dollars a barrel in early September, 94 percent above pre-war levels. ^[11]

The strait's traffic is counted differently by the people who count it. Al Jazeera compared the counts on 3 September: before the war about 100 ships and 20 million barrels a day passed; Kpler counted six vessels one Wednesday, eleven the day before and five the day before that; Lloyd's List Intelligence put the average at about 12 transits a day in the last week of August; PortWatch's average since March was seven; American officials cited far higher numbers, which the tracking firms' analysts attributed to counting smaller ships, ships without cargo and ships under naval escort. The 100 million barrels Riyadh has just sold through the strait, if they sail, would more than double the recent flow from the kingdom's Gulf ports by The National's account. ^{[12, 7]}

Who it reaches

Every path is adjacent, because a missile and a negotiation name no company. ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Occidental sell crude against the benchmarks the reports cite. Valero, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66 buy that crude and sell the diesel the agency prices at 94 percent above pre-war levels. Frontline, DHT and International Seaways own the tankers, and Aramco's offer to carry its own crude to Asia moves the shipping risk from the buyer to the seller, as The National's traders described; Scorpio carries the refined products whose Gulf exports the agency counts short. Delta, United and American buy the jet fuel from the same short pool. Each company's file on this site carries its record. ^{[4, 11, 7]}

Where the sources disagree

On the missiles. The coalition counts six, at Taif and Yanbu, all intercepted; the Houthis claim dozens, at Jazan. The two accounts differ on number and on target, and neither reports damage. The desk prints both and takes neither as the count. ^{[1, 3]}

On the pipeline. Reuters' sources on Tuesday had it restarted at a low rate with a first cargo loading at Yanbu; The National on Wednesday has it 'still not fully operational' and the kingdom routing 100 million barrels through Hormuz instead; the agency's report, written before either, has Gulf exports at half their pre-war level. Aramco has not commented on any of it. Reading them together, the bypass is open but not yet the bypass it was, and the crude is going the long way round through the strait it was built to avoid. ^{[6, 7, 11]}

On the talks. Reuters' sources describe stages; Rezaei says nothing opens until Iran's conditions are met; Pezeshkian is ready for dialogue and will not bend; Ross gives it 30 percent by November. The statements are not contradictory so much as sequential: an offer on the 22nd, a speech on the 23rd, a report of stages on the 24th. What none of them is yet is a document. ^{[10, 4, 9, 8]}

On the price. The National's 107.93 dollars is a level at 7:42 in the evening in Abu Dhabi; Yahoo Finance's 'more than 3 percent' is the New York close; the agency's 113.48 was the 9 September level in its own report. The desk repeats each as reported and measures none itself. ^{[4, 5, 11]}

What settles it next

The dated records to read. The pipeline's own rate, which Reuters' sources put at 40 percent within days and full within six to eight weeks of 22 September, and the loadings at Yanbu, which the kingdom's ministry announced when it shut the line and can announce when it fills it. The October and November cargoes to Asia, which either sail through the strait or do not. The talks in New York, which have no date and, so far, no document. The agency's next monthly report in mid-October, with September's exports and the stock draw. And the coalition's next statement, which will say what else was fired at Yanbu. ^{[6, 7, 10, 11, 1]}

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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