Asian Refiners Ask Aramco to Shift Saudi Crude Pickup to Egypt as Red Sea Exports Crater
Houthi attacks have cut Saudi Red Sea exports 41%, pushing Asian refiners toward Egypt's Sidi Kerir port where Aramco has yet to finalize pricing or a start date.
At least two Asian refiners asked Saudi Aramco in mid-August (2026-08-17) to let them collect purchased crude cargoes from Sidi Kerir — Egypt's Mediterranean port — rather than from Yanbu on the Red Sea, Bloomberg's trading sources reported. Around the same time, tankers operated by shipowners including Sinokor Group were by late August (2026-08-21) shuttling Saudi crude northward through the Red Sea to exit via the safer northern end, bypassing the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint in the south, Rigzone reported.6,7
The scale of the shift being sought reflects how severely Saudi Red Sea exports have declined. Yanbu loadings fell 41% from their March peak to around 2.39 million barrels per day by June 2026, and were running 66% below January's combined export level of roughly 7.96 million bpd across both Gulf and Red Sea terminals, OilPrice.com reported.4
Saudi Arabia had earlier redirected virtually all crude exports through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu after Houthi militants began targeting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — making Yanbu the kingdom's main export outlet. That bet has since unraveled as Houthis extended their campaign southward toward Bab el-Mandeb.4,1
The southern threat is real and growing. An analyst at MarineTraffic said on Wednesday (2026-07-22) that the Bab el-Mandeb risk picture was deteriorating, describing the strait as the gateway to the Red Sea. Houthi rebels announced they would seek to impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, a threat one analyst assessed bluntly: if Bab el-Mandeb comes under sustained disruption from a declared naval blockade, Asia stands to lose a major crude supply artery.2,4
Aramco is now preparing a separate official selling price for oil loaded at Sidi Kerir and delivered to Asia. By late July (2026-07-29), the producer had already informed at least two Chinese refiners it might introduce such a mechanism, traders told OilPrice.com, asking not to be named as they were not permitted to speak to the media. The starting date and pricing details had not been finalized, the traders said.5
Moving substantial volumes through Sidi Kerir hinges on the SUMED pipeline, which runs from Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean and can handle around 2.5 million barrels per day at full capacity.3
That ceiling sits well short of stated ambitions. Aramco planned to route more than 5 million barrels per day through alternative paths to stabilize global supply, and industry estimates published in May (2026-05-21) suggested existing infrastructure could handle roughly 5 million bpd through the alternate corridor — though whether those figures accounted for the SUMED constraint is unclear from the available reporting.1
ICE Brent crude front-month was at $94.97 per barrel as of September 5, 2026 — pulled back from the high above $98 that crude hit in late July (2026-07-23), when the Houthi naval threat first widened and prices had surged more than 33% in a single month, according to CryptoBriefing. The retreat suggests the market has partly absorbed the rerouting as workable, even as physical flows from Yanbu continue to run far below pre-crisis levels.3
Most Chinese, Indian, and Taiwanese refiners were still being asked to collect cargoes from Yanbu as of mid-August (2026-08-17), Bloomberg's sources said. The Sidi Kerir option remained the exception. That gap between the refiners securing Mediterranean loading and the bulk of Asian buyers still exposed to Red Sea risk shows that Aramco has not yet moved to a system-wide solution.6
The piece Aramco still needs to set is the price. Traders said the producer had not fixed a start date or finalized terms for Sidi Kerir deliveries as of late July (2026-07-29). Without that, Asian buyers cannot compare the cost of Mediterranean loading — which involves longer tanker voyages from the Gulf or passage through SUMED — against the price of tankers shuttling north through waters that Houthi forces have already shown they can threaten.5