The Strait of Hormuz bypass pipelines now being planned, built, and debated across the Persian Gulf represent something the region has talked about for forty years and never seriously executed. The war changed that.

Before the fighting began, roughly 15 million barrels of Gulf oil moved through the strait daily. Within a few years, a substantial portion of that volume may never touch it.

At least seven major pipeline projects are underway, in planning, or under discussion, according to government officials, oil companies, and analysts. The common thread is a conclusion Gulf producers reached the hard way: routing the majority of your export revenue through a waterway that hugs Iran’s coastline is a structural vulnerability, not a logistical convenience.

As Kpler senior research analyst Victoria Grabenwöger put it, that level of dependence is no longer a prudent long-term strategy.

What Already Existed

The world economy absorbed the Hormuz shutdown better than it might have, and the reason traces back to a decision made during a different war.

Saudi Arabia built its East-West pipeline in the 1980s, worried that Tehran would disrupt strait traffic during the Iran-Iraq conflict. The line carries crude from the Abqaiq processing facility across the desert to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, where tankers load for either the Arabian Sea to the south or the Suez Canal to the north.

The United Arab Emirates has meanwhile increased flows to Fujairah, a port on the Gulf of Oman roughly 90 miles south of the strait — outside the bottleneck entirely.

Before the war, those two systems held combined spare capacity of somewhere between 3.5 and 5.5 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That cushion has been consumed. Both pipelines now run near capacity.

Abu Dhabi Accelerates

The most advanced new project belongs to Abu Dhabi’s state oil company.

The details:

• A $3 billion pipeline running roughly 200 miles to Fujairah
• Constructed parallel to an existing line
• Designed to add more than 1.2 million barrels per day of capacity
• Reportedly about halfway complete

The project predates the war, but its timeline does not. Original targets pointed to early 2027; Kpler considers mid-2027 more realistic given the port expansion Fujairah will require to handle the additional volume.

Grabenwöger noted that the aggressive schedule became feasible only because of the blockade. Crisis has a way of shortening approval processes.

Iraq’s Predicament

No country has been hurt more directly than Iraq, which depends on oil for roughly 90 percent of government revenue and has been forced to reduce production because it cannot move the barrels.

Baghdad is pursuing alternatives with American companies. The most significant would connect the Basra terminal — which handled more than 3 million barrels daily before the war — to Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

A branch would extend to Baniyas in Syria, a route the U.S. State Department has described as a critical energy corridor. Ultimate throughput to Baniyas could reach 2 million barrels per day.

Iraqi officials have also revived long-dormant discussions with Jordan about a line from Basra to Aqaba, opening access to the Red Sea and Suez for Asian-bound cargo.

The Scale of What’s Planned

Goldman Sachs analysts have run the numbers on the combined effect.

The bypass projects could carry an additional 3.8 million barrels per day by the end of next year, rising to 7.3 million barrels daily by the close of 2028.

At that level, roughly 60 percent of the Gulf’s prewar exports of 23 million barrels per day could avoid Hormuz if necessary.

That is a genuine structural change in how Middle Eastern oil reaches the world.

The Problems Nobody Can Engineer Away

Enthusiasm should be tempered, because the alternatives carry their own exposures.

Thursday’s Houthi attacks on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea demonstrated the point in real time. The rebels have disrupted Bab el-Mandeb shipping before, and any additional Saudi volume routed to the Red Sea inherits that risk.

Pipelines are not immune either. A Houthi drone strike shut down the Saudi East-West line in May 2019.

Then there is geography working against economics:

• Mediterranean routes send oil the wrong direction for Asian buyers
• Reaching Asia from the Mediterranean requires rounding southern Africa
• The Suez Canal cannot accommodate the largest tankers, which carry up to 2 million barrels
• Those vessels are typically the most cost-efficient option for long hauls

Every workaround adds days, distance, and expense to a barrel’s journey.

The LNG Gap

One category of disruption receives less attention and has no pipeline solution at all.

Roughly one-fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas moved through Hormuz before the war, much of it Qatari cargo bound for Asian customers.

LNG travels by specialized ship. There is no pipeline substitute for that trade in this region, which means the gas disruption persists regardless of how much crude successfully reroutes.

Asian buyers who depend on Qatari LNG have no equivalent of Fujairah waiting for them.

What This Means Long Term

The pipelines being built now will outlast the conflict that motivated them. That is the part worth thinking about.

Once billions of dollars in infrastructure exists to move Gulf crude around Iran, the strategic value of controlling the strait declines permanently. Tehran’s most powerful economic lever loses force with every kilometer of pipe laid.

Gulf producers understand this. So, presumably, does Iran.

The war produced an immediate crisis and a permanent response. Even if the strait reopens tomorrow, the construction will continue — because the lesson these governments learned is not about this war.

It is about the next one.