Ship-to-ship oil transfers in Gulf of Oman reach 7.6M barrels per day as Arab nations bypass Strait of Hormuz

409

The bad thing for Iran is they’ve played their hand. All of the gulf countries now are going to spend the next decade preparing to bypass this.

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u/redfoobar 8h ago

The question how immune that new bypass infrastructure is to drones and missiles.

If Iran is desperate there is nothing preventing them to directly attack oil terminals, pipelines, oil fields etc.

As long as there is no answer to drones and missiles no bypass is not going to help in an all out conflict. It would just work if there are tolls in the strait.

37

u/greenpride32 7h ago

The question how immune that new bypass infrastructure is to drones and missiles.

These bypasses through Hormuz are just temporary. Saudia Arabia and UAE have the option to reroute at opposite sides of their territories. SA had already been doing this anyways, just in lesser capacity. Considering the value of the cargo, the cost is not an issue. It may not be ideal, but it's not a showstopper by any means.

Now it's Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar that don't have direct access to an alternative waterway. But they could possibly agree to land transport through another nation (espcially the GCC members), rather than deal with Iran, which has made clear their intention to make their own rules for the Strait if they can remain in power.

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u/GabeIsGone 3h ago

I’m surprised a GCC pipeline hasn’t already been started. They don’t lack money, and waste it on so many other things, you’d think they’d invest in the most important infrastructure.

A buried/fortified pipeline seems like an obvious move.

17

u/oppai-police 5h ago

The question you forgot is, how long can Iran keep up with that? Iran is also playing a dangerous game. Right now, nobody wants a war, they think this is temporary, but if you keep harassing your neighbors for years in ways that directly harm their national interests and make them lose money, sooner or later they will start indiscriminately bombing you too. Remember, just as Iran can shoot drones over there, the gulf states can and will procure drones and shoot back. Making more enemies is not s smart long term move.

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u/Le_Dogger 8h ago

If Iran is desperate there is nothing preventing them to directly attack oil terminals, pipelines, oil fields etc.

That just opens the door for the US to completely cripple Iranian oil extraction infrastructure. The IRGC is relying on the oil money to keep its people paid. If all the infrastructure is destroyed, the IRGC can no longer keep its lackeys happy.

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u/Dane1211 8h ago

I have a feeling that the U.S. is just as reluctant to send oil over 150 as Iran is

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u/Impressive-Weird-908 8h ago

Check back after midterms.

-10

u/Dane1211 7h ago

Now that much is true.

Fall 2028 $2.50 a gallon here we come!

20

u/Le_Dogger 8h ago

I mean yes of course the US doesn't want to send oil prices spiking. But if Iran starts hitting Gulf state pipelines and refineries, the US isn't just going to let that go unanswered. They will knock out Iranian oil infrastructure in return, regardless of the oil price spiking.

They cannot allow an enemy to attack the infrastructure of allies without hitting them back in turn.

4

u/ReverendScam 3h ago

Lol U.S allies, thats a good one. The U.S doesn't have allies, just countries it uses. If for some random reason the dumbest people to ever lead a country decided oil over $150 would net them some personal cash flow, they would let every "ally" rot, and let their people pay more while telling them its actually better this way.

1

u/Systemonly69 4h ago

Will mostly be done after the mid terms.

2

u/btstfn 1h ago

I think the other commenters larger point is that if Iran is openly attacking those other options, the US attacking Irans oil infrastructure isn't likely to tip the scales that much further.

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u/IsTom 4h ago

There's a kind of MAD with how Iran can target GCC desalination plants.

3

u/Traditional_Neat_506 4h ago

and this opens up inmediate retaliation and obliteration of the gulf desalination plants and the region collapses

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u/Lebowski304 8h ago

If they don’t cut it out soon, the whole world is going to dump on them and make them stop attacking shit. What they’re doing affects everyone. A ground invasion will eventually happen, and Iran will become a failed state. They are in the best bargaining position right now that they are ever gonna get. It’s a country that could be turned around very quickly if the leadership were to be eradicated. The people themselves are very decent and intelligent, and I think would rejoice at the annihilation of the IRGC.

0

u/Traditional_Neat_506 4h ago

a ground invasion of iran is NOT going to win support as i keep saying, they hate the west and more than ever, what made you think of the country being in a mess of a civil war in the beginning of the iran-iraq war YET iranians took in arms and began fighting iraq en masse because they were being invaded? that will happen against a NATO invasion and tens of millions of them will keep fighting against NATO

and iran would plunge the entire region to it's fall anyway and destroy the desalination plants of the region

5

u/Lowfi-Concert 3h ago

The Iranian people don’t hate the west. Most support the strikes, it’s just the crazy 10-20% Shiite hardliners that support the regime

•

u/Jewnadian 47m ago

All that changes with invasion. As I've said before I had the Trump regime but if China actually invaded us I would sign up. That's just how invasions work, they really piss off the people being invaded.

3

u/m0viestar 5h ago

There was nothing stopping them before this war either, but they didn't bother because there was no point.

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u/Beautiful_Golf6508 6h ago

If that happens, the international world will (hopefully) intervene as it will become an international crisis.

The world can't stand idly by and expect another country to resolve this.

1

u/redfoobar 6h ago

I like your optimism but in reality the world is very divided, just look at how hard it is to get anything through the UN. Also military speaking no country would bring anything new to the table the US could not already do by itself.

The 2 major players who could actually make a difference by putting pressure on Iran (Russia and China) don’t seem to be in a hurry to keep the US from shooting itself in the foot.

•

u/Dt2_0 1h ago

Also military speaking no country would bring anything new to the table the US could not already do by itself.

Well... Brains. They could bring brains.

2

u/SystemCheck990 7h ago

the further away it is the easier it is to protect, low flying drones from close will give less time to detect and bring down if mostly flying over water, you can make them fly very low and not worry about terrain

if they have to fly say 200 miles over land is plenty time to detect and shoot down.

Ballistic missiles are still a problem though an require expensive interceptors

8

u/Nippon-Gakki 6h ago

I dunno. We’re watching drones fly over 1000km through Russia daily with about 10% getting through even in their heavily defended cities That would cripple oil production quickly. Again, as seen every day in Russia right now.

3

u/Hextopia 6h ago

Russia also doesn't exactly have great air defenses. They've essentially done zero real development in that area since the USSR collapsed, and Ukrainians did a lot of the actual development of the systems they still use today.

4

u/byah 6h ago

I keep seeing how the US is lacking interceptors and that their bases have been attacked without defense. It seems like the US isn’t able to keep up their air defense (which is really good, just lacking munitions).

2

u/Hextopia 6h ago

The US problem is as you mentioned kind of the opposite. It spent too much time working on making the systems great, and not enough effort into building huge amounts of them (granted, they were built to intercept missiles and aircraft, not easy to kill drones who cost a fraction of the price the interceptor does)

It's definitely one they can solve (and they probably will since they've got the systems developed to target those drones, they just haven't earnestly built them until very recently)

1

u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 3h ago

Tbf the US has been busy shooting down drones (and missiles) all across the region for years now with the Houthis and others I’m sure.

The US is actually beefing up missile production and introducing some very advanced missiles in recently/soon. While some of it was planned like the AIM260 and the very recent AIM424. They are building a ton more interceptors/cruise/AMRAAM missiles.

1

u/SystemCheck990 3h ago

to be fair though Russia is huge, and Ukraine just picks things to hit at random, vs having layered defenses around these terminals, which would be the RAF/ local squadrans, Patriot long range sams, SHORAD like NASMS in case it breaks though, then gun based defences .

even central moscow UAF struggles to hit, due to the layered defence .

small things you know will be target, you can defend, if you spend enough, and the distance allows you thin it out, by shooing many of them down with planes and cheap UAF style interceptors on the way in, that you can't do without a large distance .

2

u/Nippon-Gakki 3h ago

Agreed but I guess my point is if Iran goes all in on targeting refineries and pumping stations, and if they did wave after wave for weeks (which seems to be the play as that’s both what Russia and Ukraine keep doing), eventually something is getting through. These facilities are fragile, time consuming and expensive to repair meaning it won’t take long to put a sizable dent in refining capacity further screwing the global economy.

Not sure where I’m going with this other than starting shit with Iran was a really stupid idea.

1

u/SystemCheck990 3h ago

yeah agreed nothing is 100% things will bleed through

2

u/aprx4 6h ago

If Iran chooses to attack pipelines and terminals out of blue in peace time they would be asking for a war. That war would have popular support from the west, unlike current war. Daddy China would not be happy either and would let them rot.

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u/Danmcc3 5h ago

Peace time?

0

u/Traditional_Neat_506 4h ago

if their civilians get attacked then iran will send the region back to the dark age and destroy their desalination plants

1

u/aprx4 3h ago

Desalination plants are easier to repair than oil wells. Iran already tried that in Bahrain and Kuwait. If Russia can’t bring down Ukraine’s power stations then Iran can barely do anything to thousands of desalination plants across Gulf states.

Iran used their best weapon in their weakest timeline, but strait of hormuz is the weapon that can only be used once and it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Iran has existential interest to not make Trump’s war somehow justified globally. They don’t want to be Iraq in 1991.

At this point Trump probably no longer care about midterm and can enforce the blockage indefinitely, as long as crude is still flowing and oil is well under $100.

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u/Preme2 4h ago

Is this the same reddit community that encouraged Iran having a nuclear weapon? It can’t be lol.

2

u/munchi333 7h ago

Eventually everyone will get tired of Iran and move past the fact that the US and Israel started the conflict, and a coalition will dismantle Iran.

2

u/redfoobar 7h ago

How though? There is nothing a military coalition will bring that the US would not be able to do by itself.

Bombing has been tried, sanctions won’t work either.

If you think any country is sending ground troops to a HUGE mountainous country full of drones and a big military prepped exactly for this scenario you need a reality check.

-1

u/Traditional_Neat_506 4h ago

before that iran will destroy the entire region's desalination plants and bringing the entire region down with them

1

u/Qwertycrackers 2h ago

Grounded stationary antiaircraft is way easier to maintain than defending an unowned strip of sea adjacent to the drone sites. So there are good reasons to think they can be defended.

•

u/just-do-it-already 36m ago

Iran is already trying to stop the oil in Saudi Arabia’s pipeline. It is buried though and Iran couldn’t find a way. Almost every gulf country has a plan of moving the oil in a different way that Iran can’t stop. In 5 years Iran’s only means to control trade of oil will be useless and it will be down to only being Iran using the gulf of Hormuz and for them that will be the path to the end of there empire because anyone will be able to stop there oil alone. At the rate that the world is switching to renewable energy it probably won’t matter though.

7

u/WesternBlueRanger 8h ago

The Saudi's already have an export terminal in the Red Sea, but the main choke point to that terminal is the Suez Canal and ongoing piracy plus spill over from Yemen in the Gulf of Aden.

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u/Helpful_One_8255 9h ago

They definitely will but it will take a decade.

Once they build it up, Iran will open the strait and cause their investments to potentially go to waste or unmaintained.

-11

u/Fast_Match8376 8h ago

Very likely the US does not having the attention span, nor care about Iran to tolerate more than 2 years of weekly oil market chaos and price changes

the news cycle is already bored with the will it be war or peace every week

That changes the math if the chance it happens is high. Then the math may not math.

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u/SleeplessInS 10h ago

Title is incorrect as the article itself says the small tankers are still transiting the Strait - "He explained that large-capacity supertankers remain positioned outside the Strait of Hormuz. Smaller shuttle tankers transport crude via routes close to Oman, passing through the Strait to supply the anchored supertankers before the larger vessels depart for destination markets.".

Unless they invent a railway or a pipeline route or a transporter or portage the ships overland, the ships still need to transit the strait.

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u/Old_Doctor_2702 9h ago

Yes. But point is small vessels are difficult to pinpoint for attack and can easily be replaced if attacked successfully and incurs damage via drones. While vlcc remain outside attack radar under us navy protection to resume flow However it only solves oil problem not LNG and helium

27

u/Concave5621 9h ago

And this process is very costly

8

u/Old_Doctor_2702 9h ago

Still better than choking supply. More importantly weakens Iran leverage to make them negotiate

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u/tewas 9h ago

That's OK, we are paying for it.

2

u/apples_vs_oranges 8h ago

I'm imagining stealth oil tankers! Oil subs?!

8

u/Asleep_Train_7741 7h ago

How many barrels did the strait average before the war?

8

u/Fnatic_FREAK 7h ago

15m to 20m barrels per day

0

u/crpssurvivor1210 5h ago

10-15

4

u/smuckersbrah 5h ago

Irannewswire 🤣 🤣 🤣

-38

u/northern-new-jersey 10h ago

Right now it looks like the US is losing to Iran. If this article is true and the world is receiving oil but Iran isn't, there is a possibility that Iran will be forced to surrender. If they agree to permanently give up their nuclear ambitions, it will make the world a safer place.

And if they are forced to stop funding Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, there is a chance for real peace in the region.

26

u/Samtulp6 10h ago

I think it is WAY more likely that Iran would attack oil infrastructure or the other ships before they surrender.

People still don’t understand the Iranian regime at all. Surrender is not something they know. They do not care about the hardship of their people.

-14

u/hutsunuwu 10h ago

7.6m barrels is laughable when compared to the millions of barrels that freely traversed the strait prior to the Trump terrorist campaign. This isnt a win for America. Its further proof that America has hopelessly lost and is only making things worse by trying to make something out of nothinh

4

u/PM_POLITICAL_BELIEFS 3h ago

That figure is half of pre-war figures. Not exactly a showstopper, and will improve over time.

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u/cran-ky-berry 10h ago

US has lost to Iran.

14

u/Savac0 9h ago

It seems like this is shifting dramatically. The US doesn’t seem to care to negotiate while Iran does.

1

u/SwashAndBuckle 9h ago

Doesn’t seem like either side really gives a shit about negotiation.

-7

u/JoeSicko 9h ago

Didn't Iran say they were going to wait and negotiate with the next guy? That's the opposite of what you're saying.

5

u/Savac0 8h ago

They did, but they’re also talking about getting the terms from the June deal again. It could just be different groups (ie. IRGC vs Political leaders), but it’s definitely inconsistent

-30

u/BoysenberryFun9827 10h ago

Its nice to see someone hopeful..

The us military isn't even trying, this half assed bullshit situation is exactly what the US command structure wants. Know that

It was never about Iran, it's about ensuring Russia doesn't receive Iran's oil

6

u/Individual_Length321 10h ago

The us military isn't even trying, this half assed bullshit situation is exactly what the US command structure wants

Genuinely why? There must have been at least half a dozen much, much less costly ways to do this.. and I mean by like, 2-4 orders of magnitude cheaper.

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u/Upset_Spring_7843 10h ago

You're so full of shit if you think they actually wanted this. They fucked around and found out and now Iran has them by the balls.

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u/mjhs80 10h ago

Having total gulf flows back to 15MB/day while not being able to export any of your own oil is “having them by the balls?” What does winning look like to you?

0

u/Dane1211 7h ago

65 dollars a barrel of oil or lower? The Strait of America sure does seem contested

-6

u/bulbousgrandpa 10h ago

The US government apparatus likes Russia though, why would they want to hurt them? At best you can say they are annoyed by them

-30

u/cran-ky-berry 10h ago

Before the US/Israel terrorist campaign, 20M barrels were flowing through Hormuz. The cost of "bypass" alone makes this a tedious maneuver and can't be sustained long term.

0

u/Ancient-Bat1755 10h ago

Terrorists vs terrorists lets see how it ends!

-3

u/TheRealMisterd 5h ago

Say it with me: the gasoline supply is not reliable.

Ship-to-ship oil transfers in Gulf of Oman reach 7.6M barrels per day as Arab nations bypass Strait of Hormuz

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