[geopolitical-wank] Oil : shunting the Persian Gulf

[Rabid]

I've heard that approximately 30-40% of all oil production worldwide must transit by the Persian Gulf. I have also heard that some regional powers (namely Iran), in some situations, could try to impose a blockade on these exports.

The purpose of this thread is fairly straightforward :

What would be the technical & political obstacles to the establishment of an oil & gas terminal in the Red Sea, which would allow Irak, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and possibly Oman to continue shipping their oil & gas (if maybe at reduced rate) even with a blockaded Persian Gulf ?




Note : I know it's the cool thing to do these days, to go all chest-beating about Iran and how the US would/should nuke them for X/Y/Z reasons (sigh), but if people could refrain from that kind of bullshit in this thread I would greatly appreciate it. The question I'm asking here is “what would it take to get all these countries to work together to create an alternative route to ship their hydrocarbons and how would they do it ?”.

[HMS Conqueror]

The Red Sea is the other side of the country to most of the oil, and Iraq, Kuwait and UAE would lose political control of the supply line. I don't see why a pipeline couldn't be built in principle.

The impediment is economic, at least for Saudi. Iran blocking the strait is a big political issue that chances of them successfully doing it for an extended period are quite low. I'd guess the oil companies don't rate it that highly.

[Sea Skimmer]

Such a pipeline has existed for a long time. It runs from Ras Tanura to Yanbu and can handle a little under half of Saudi crude production, it was built back in the later 1970s as I recall, but heavily upgraded after the Gulf War. Saudi also used to have a pipeline, the main export route in fact, that ran to a place now named Haifa.. that's been shut down a long time. Pipelines on the scale that would be required to move all the modern gulf export traffic would be a massive expense, made worse by the fact that most gulf oil is heavy and flows poorly, it wouldn't work in the pipelines at all over such distance if the desert wasn't so hot. Gas pipelines run from Qatar and the UAE to the Gulf of Oman; a project for an oil pipeline to Yemen has been long stalled by the nations civil war like conflict.

In the end the ability of a pipeline to the Red Sea to help is limited anyway, since so much oil and gas production is now offshore and only piped to offshore loading bouys. Iran can attack all of that with a range of systems. Its just cheaper to buy more weapons to fight Iran and get the sea lanes open again that try to build some totally massive diversion pipeline, storage tank and loading terminal system that would only serve to make every barrel of oil and cubic meter of gas a lot more expensive. Also of course, for the moment diversions to the Red Sea would then have to sail through the most pirate infested waters on earth. Most of the oil tankers and now even some of the gas carriers are too big for Suez.

[Rabid]

I see. Thanks.