The Gulf's way out of Hormuz was laid before the war

The pipeline carried the load; the ports could not

In April and May, Saudi shipments leaving the kingdom's Gulf coast fell from 47.5 million tonnes a year earlier to 6.3 million tonnes. Over the same two months, exports through the Red Sea rose from 29.6 million to 54.8 million tonnes. That additional 25.2 million tonnes, drawn from the International Monetary Fund's Portwatch data, replaced roughly 61 per cent of the volume lost on the Gulf side. Crude that Riyadh pushed through the East-West Pipeline to the port of Yanbu kept reaching buyers even while the strait was shut.^[1]

The United Arab Emirates has the more complete kit on paper. The ADCOP pipeline from Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, and the deepwater facilities at Fujairah and Khor Fakkan, all sit outside the strait. DW reports that these ports remain close enough to Iran to be within drone and missile range, and that Fujairah was attacked during the fighting. Standing outside the strait has not meant standing outside the war.^[1]

Who will open the strait?

The strait's fate is still argued over outside Gulf capitals. Hossein Taeb, the recently appointed head of Iran's Basij force, said on Thursday that Hormuz is "under the management and control of the Islamic Republic"; a day earlier US President Donald Trump had claimed "total control" of the same waterway. Rasoul Sanaei-Rad, a senior military political official, said reopening the strait was not something Washington could achieve on its own.^[2]

Tehran's conditions are set out just as plainly. Rezaei, the new head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told China's ambassador in Tehran, Cong Peiwu, that the strait would not reopen until Washington changed its behaviour and accepted Iran's conditions, demanding an end to the blockade, the release of frozen assets and a region-wide ceasefire including Gaza and Lebanon. That same day Pakistan's interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, was in Tehran, meeting President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.^[3]

Put the two pictures side by side and the line that bounds Gulf producers' options comes from infrastructure built before the war; this year's diplomacy does not widen it. Saudi Arabia's Red Sea route could carry volume in a crisis because it was laid years ago, and the Emirati facilities were ready before the war too, yet their location left them exposed. Another explanation of the same outcome is available: long-term sales contracts, refinery links and insurance terms may have constrained routing independently of pipeline capacity, and the data DW reports cannot separate the two.^{[1], [2]}

Which figures come next?

If the Emirati plan to add capacity alongside ADCOP takes shape, its measurable trace would be a rise in shipments from Fujairah in the Portwatch data towards the end of the year. Without that rise, the question of whether capacity outside the strait is genuinely usable under war conditions stays open, and the Gulf's backup route keeps resting on a single country, Saudi Arabia.^[1]