Kuwait Oil Chief Seeks Pipeline Alternatives to Skirt Hormuz

Kuwait is actively pursuing pipeline routes to bypass the Strait of Hormuz as ongoing tensions have effectively choked off the Persian Gulf’s primary oil export artery. Sheik Nawaf Al-Sabah, Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), the state-owned oil producer, disclosed the initiative during a conference in Washington on Tuesday.

According to Sheik Nawaf, KPC is in discussions with neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about expanding their existing pipeline networks to accommodate Kuwaiti crude barrels. He provided no details on the stage of negotiations or a potential timeline for Kuwaiti oil to begin flowing through these alternative routes.

The move comes as the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz has stranded vital oil volumes and deprived Gulf producers of essential revenue. Kuwait, which has no independent bypass infrastructure, has been particularly hard-hit. Prior to the disruptions, the country exported roughly 2 million barrels per day of crude oil, with every barrel transiting the strait. In April 2026, Kuwait recorded zero crude exports for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.

Existing Bypass Pipelines in Focus

Kuwait’s talks center on leveraging and expanding two established crude-oil pipelines that already avoid the Strait of Hormuz:

Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline (Petroline): This 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) system runs from the Abqaiq oil-processing center in the Eastern Province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. It has a pumping capacity of up to 7 million barrels per day (bpd), recently restored to full levels following earlier attacks during the regional conflict. However, loading capacity at Yanbu’s terminals limits effective exports to approximately 4–4.5 million bpd under normal conditions, with wartime estimates closer to 3–4 million bpd. The pipeline transports crude oil.

UAE’s Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP / Habshan–Fujairah Pipeline): Stretching approximately 406 km (252 miles) from Abu Dhabi’s Habshan fields to the Gulf of Oman port of Fujairah, this line currently carries 1.5–1.8 million bpd of crude oil. The UAE is fast-tracking a parallel “West-East” pipeline to double Fujairah’s bypass capacity to roughly 3.6 million bpd by 2027.

Both systems are dedicated to crude oil; no natural-gas components or parallel gas export plans were mentioned in connection with Kuwait’s outreach.

Additional Options Under Consideration

Industry reports indicate Kuwait is also exploring broader possibilities, including potential connections to Saudi Arabia’s long-mothballed Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline). Originally built in the 1950s, the Tapline spanned roughly 1,200–1,650 km from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province across Jordan and Syria to Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast. It was decommissioned in the early 1990s and is currently unfit for service, though reviving segments could theoretically provide a route to the Mediterranean.

Discussions have also touched on using Omani storage facilities on the Arabian Sea side of the strait as a short-term workaround.

Strategic Implications

For Kuwait, securing alternative export routes is now a political and economic priority. The country’s near-total dependence on Hormuz has halted revenue flows critical to funding its economy and ambitious development plans. Expanding neighboring pipelines would require new connecting infrastructure from Kuwait’s fields, but it could restore a significant portion of lost export capacity once operational.

The initiative underscores a wider regional scramble among Gulf producers to reduce reliance on the strait, which normally handles about 20 million bpd of crude and products—roughly one-fifth of global seaborne oil trade. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE already possess partial bypass options, smaller neighbors like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar remain far more vulnerable.

KPC has not commented on costs, timelines, or the technical feasibility of tying into Saudi or UAE systems, but the urgency is clear: with the Hormuz route effectively blocked, pipeline diplomacy has become Kuwait’s lifeline.

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