US officials: projectiles hit Saudi East-West pipeline pump stations; drones from Iraq cited
NEW · Fri. 2:15 p.m. EDT
Two U.S. officials told CNN a key Saudi oil pipeline system was struck by projectiles on Thursday, with early analysis pointing to pump stations beside the East-West (Petroline) line and one official citing drones originating from Iraq. Satellite images showed fire damage or smoke at pumping sites; Aramco and the Saudi government did not immediately confirm an incident. The Payne Institute said VIIRS Nightfire readings along the route looked more like known flare pits entering an emergency flaring regime than new pipeline rupture fires. The line has carried roughly 5 million barrels a day of crude diverted to Yanbu on the Red Sea since Iran tightened Hormuz.
Oil pipelines in the Jubail desert, Saudi Arabia. File photograph; not from Thursday's reported pump-station fires.
Suresh Babunair / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Center-left view
Reuters (via BOE Report), the Payne Institute at Colorado School of Mines, and Anadolu Agency stress smoke and thermal anomalies without a Saudi/Aramco confirmation, noting FIRMS alone cannot prove what is burning; Payne's Nightfire analysis finds the strongest activity at previously cataloged flare sites with sharp gas-flow spikes consistent with emergency flaring rather than multi-point catastrophic ruptures claimed on social channels.
Sources: Reuters / BOE Report · Payne Institute · Anadolu Agency
Center-right view
CNN, Times Now, and OSINT613 foreground U.S. officials' account that pump stations were hit and that drones came from Iraq — a new front via Iranian-aligned militias on the Hormuz-bypass lifeline that moves about 5 million barrels a day to Yanbu — as Houthi gains near Bab el-Mandeb already threaten the Red Sea leg and oil holds above $100.