Aerial view of the Ras Tanura refinery on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast: process units, storage tanks and a gas flare on the sand beside the sea · Paul Palmer, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Study · YANBU · 2026-10-17 · 4 min read · Oil exports and shipping · Futures

Yanbu loadings slow as Saudi crude turns back to the Gulf

Houthi threats push Saudi exports back toward the Gulf coast just as attacks in Hormuz climb, Kpler and the UK's maritime agency report.

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

XOM ExxonMobil Holdings Corporationadjacent DAL Delta Air Lines, Inc.adjacent

What changed since chapter eleven

Since chapter eleven, Saudi crude loadings at Yanbu slowed to around 668 thousand barrels a day this week, from 3.1 million the week before, Kpler reported on Friday 16 October. ^[1]

Loadings at Ras Tanura, on the Gulf coast, climbed to 6.25 million barrels a day from 3.57 million, as Saudi Arabia shifts exports back to the Gulf amid Houthi threats, Kpler wrote. Red Sea volumes averaged 2,421 thousand barrels a day over the seven days to 14 October, about 14 percent below the pre-war 2,803. ^[1]

Attacks in the strait climbed at the same time. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency, UKMTO, recorded 12 attacks in its latest week, 10 of them in the Strait of Hormuz, and one ship lost, gCaptain and Anadolu reported. Iran's navy said on Tuesday 13 October that it had deployed new units east of the strait, Al Jazeera reported. ^{[4, 6, 12]}

On Friday 16 October, Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said in a video: 'with the exception of the humanitarian assistance we've allowed in, Iran has no exports and no imports by sea.' He said about 400 merchant ships crossed the strait in the previous seven days, Anadolu reported. ^{[6, 7, 4]}

The record

The International Maritime Organization's list, as at 14 October, counts 113 confirmed incidents and 24 seafarer deaths. It records the container ship GFS Pride sunk in the strait on 13 October, and the bulk carrier Cape Dao, struck on 23 September northeast of Khasab, Oman, as partially sunk. ^[2]

Singapore's port authority said all 21 crew of the GFS Pride were evacuated and no injuries were reported. One Cape Dao crew member was killed in the September strike, maritime sources told Reuters, and the two are the second and third ships sunk since the war began on 28 February. ^[8]

The Joint Maritime Information Center, the US Navy-led monitor, kept the strait's threat level at severe in its advisory of 15 October. It counted eight projectile attacks on 11 and 13 October and 121 US-facilitated transits from 11 to 14 October, about 30 a day against about 138 a day in 2025, gCaptain reported. ^{[5, 12]}

Kpler put confirmed strait transits, Iranian-origin ships excluded, at a seven-day average of 8,232 thousand barrels a day, against 17,175 before the war. Its analysts reported crude through Hormuz at around 8.5 million barrels a day this week, from over 20 million the week before. Iran has loaded no crude or condensate cargo since 25 August, Kpler wrote. ^[1]

Brent crude futures were up 2.9 percent at $109.02 a barrel on Friday 16 October, Reuters reported; CNBC's headline said Brent touched $110, and CNBC's page could not be read. Supertanker freight from the Gulf of Oman to China eased to about 776 on the Worldscale scale, from 841 the week before, Baltic Exchange data cited by Reuters showed. ^{[10, 14, 9]}

Who it reaches

Exxon Mobil (XOM) is adjacent: it signalled on Friday 16 October that third-quarter refining margins could lift downstream profit by $4.5 billion against the second quarter, Reuters reported. Reuters tied those margins to the Iran war and to Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and said Exxon signalled no volume disruptions from the war. ^[11]

Delta (DAL) is adjacent: its Atlanta to Riyadh launch is moved to March 2027, and the US Embassy's alert of 16 October says King Khalid airport in Riyadh stays shut through 17 October. The same alert says US government staff need special authorization to travel to Yanbu. Tanker owners are reached through freight: Kpler put the cost of hauling 2 million barrels from the Gulf of Oman to Northeast Asia at around $22 a barrel, against less than $10 a month ago. ^{[13, 3, 1]}

Where the sources disagree

On traffic, Cooper counted about 400 ships in seven days, while UKMTO recorded 254 transits in the seven days to 14 October, about 70 percent below pre-conflict levels, gCaptain reported. UKMTO said 212 of those were US-reported transits it cannot verify, and that most ships attacked do not report to it. ^{[4, 6]}

On the GFS Pride, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said it struck a mine, while Central Command said it 'was hit by an IRGC projectile', gCaptain reported. The Guards also said on Friday 16 October that an unnamed supertanker carrying more than 2 million barrels struck a mine, Anadolu reported; no other record read here confirms it. ^{[5, 6]}

What settles it next

The Riyadh airport closure runs through Saturday 17 October, the embassy's alert says, and Exxon releases full third-quarter results on Friday 30 October, Reuters reported. Kpler's analysts now assume a slower and more uneven recovery in tanker traffic. The Saudi energy ministry plans to lift East-West pipeline capacity to 10 million barrels a day from 7 million, which could take up to three years, Kpler wrote. ^{[3, 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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