larry johnson speaks about saudi oil; 

 

When the Strait of Hormuz closed at the end of February, Saudi Arabia had what almost no other Gulf producer had: a way out at scale. The East-West pipeline, known in the industry as Petroline, carries crude 1,200 kilometers across the desert from the oil fields of the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Its maximum capacity is about 7 million barrels a day. For seven months it has been the reason the world could still count on Saudi oil. That lifeline is now failing.

How the system works

Karl Miller has just mapped the network, and his work makes clear why the pipeline is so vulnerable. Oil does not simply flow from a well into a pipe. It is lifted from wells across the great fields, Ghawar, Khurais, Shaybah and the rest, and sent through gathering lines to gas-oil separation plants, where oil, gas and water are separated. It then moves to Abqaiq, the stabilization hub at the center of the system, which has 18 crude stabilization units. Only then does it enter the East-West corridor.

The pipeline itself depends on 11 mainline pumping stations that push the crude across the country, plus two separate pressure-relief stations that protect the line but add no pumping power. At Yanbu the crude goes into storage, to refineries and onto tankers. Every link has to work. As Miller puts it, a pipeline is a connected system of pressure, power and controls, and Yanbu can stop loading without a single bomb hitting the port if the crude stops arriving.............more.............