South Korea loads 645,000 barrels a day at this Saudi Red Sea port. So why is the detour shrinking?

Since the Strait of Hormuz closed, Saudi crude bound for Asia crosses the country and leaves from the other coast. Taking May alone, China loaded about 774,000 barrels a day at that port, South Korea about 645,000, Japan about 452,000 and India about 387,000. Together the four take about 2.26 million barrels a day, more than half of everything leaving Yanbu.

Where is Yanbu, and why there

The East-West pipeline runs 746 miles, about 1,200 kilometres, from the eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Crude that leaves from there never enters the Gulf, so it never has to pass through Hormuz. For South Korea, that means much of its Saudi crude is now loaded on the opposite sea from where it used to come. Loadings at Yanbu really did jump. They have run above 4 million barrels a day since June, against 973,000 barrels a day around the same period a year earlier. In the same report, industry sources say Yanbu has been fixing at maximum capacity for weeks and there is not much room for higher shipments.

Yanbu Port Reaches Near Maximum Crude Shipments (MarineLink, 2026-07-14)

출처: marinelink.com

So why are the volumes falling

This is where the numbers part ways. Wood Mackenzie's count has the Red Sea bypass peaking at about 4.07 million barrels a day in March and falling 41% to about 2.39 million by June. The same data has total Gulf crude exports collapsing 82%, from 18.8 million barrels a day in January to 3.4 million in June.

One side counts a single month's buyer list, the other counts four months of flow. That is why the same port points in two directions.

Does the detour have a chokepoint of its own

Before it closed, Hormuz carried about 11.4 million barrels a day. Even at its peak, the Yanbu route moved a little over a third of that. One pipeline does not stand in for one strait. Wood Mackenzie's Ian Solis puts it plainly: Yanbu has its own chokepoint. If Bab al-Mandeb comes under sustained disruption from a declared Houthi naval blockade, Asia stands to lose a major crude supply artery. Crude loaded at Yanbu still has to pass through that narrow entrance to reach Asia.

Wood Mackenzie: Saudi Arabia's Red Sea crude bypass peaks in March and declines 41% by June (Hydrocarbon Engineering, 2026-07-27)

출처: hydrocarbonengineering.com

What settles it

The question comes down to one thing. Is the Yanbu route a replacement for Hormuz, or a buffer that buys time while costs climb? The place to watch is Bab al-Mandeb. If traffic through that strait holds, Yanbu looks like a replacement; if the Houthi blockade keeps turning ships around, it ends as a buffer. For South Korea this is not somebody else's problem. On May figures it was the second-largest buyer at that port, and the crude still arrives through one narrow entrance.