{"id":738,"date":"2026-09-19T03:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/aramco-moves-60-million-barrels-through-hormuz-for-sts-off-sohar-as-yanbu-stays-constrained\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T03:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:34:29","slug":"aramco-moves-60-million-barrels-through-hormuz-for-sts-off-sohar-as-yanbu-stays-constrained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/aramco-moves-60-million-barrels-through-hormuz-for-sts-off-sohar-as-yanbu-stays-constrained\/","title":{"rendered":"Aramco Moves 60 Million Barrels Through Hormuz for STS Off Sohar as Yanbu Stays Constrained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trade sources told Reuters on Friday, 18 September 2026, that Saudi Arabia has sold about 60 million barrels of crude from Ras Tanura, inside the Gulf, for loading this month and next by ship-to-ship transfer at Sohar, just outside the Strait of Hormuz. The buyers named in that reporting are Chinese and South Korean refiners first, with some volumes for India and Japan. Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours. Global oil futures fell more than one dollar a barrel on the same Friday, on the combined report that the kingdom was offering those STS cargoes and seeking to return about half the capacity of the East\u2013West pipeline within days.<\/p>\n

That is not a reopening of the counted Hormuz VLCC programme. It is a workaround that puts Saudi barrels back onto the waterway the industry has been trying to avoid, then takes the title transfer and the long-haul loading outside the strait. Petroleum Association of Japan President Shunichi Kito said in Tokyo on Friday that Japanese refiners have secured sufficient crude through November, pointing to STS transfers occurring outside Hormuz. \u201cIn some cases, oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz at Saudi Arabia\u2019s risk before being transferred to us outside the Gulf. For that reason, supplies from Saudi Arabia have not ceased entirely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The operational split in that sentence is the story. A shuttle tanker, or a laden hull that still accepts the southern route, takes the Hormuz war-risk, the IRGC authorisation problem and the UKMTO projectile file. A receiving VLCC waiting off Sohar takes an STS, collision and pollution file in the Gulf of Oman, and a different war-risk period. Charterers who brief \u201cSaudi supply is back\u201d without naming which hull is in which risk window will mis-price the next October stem.<\/p>\n

What the 60 million barrels actually are<\/h2>\n

Reuters\u2019 sources put the rebound in Aramco\u2019s exports from inside the Gulf at one million to 1.5 million barrels a day on average, similar to or slightly higher than August. That volume is intended to offset barrels lost at Yanbu after the East\u2013West pipeline, Petroline, was shut following last week\u2019s drone strikes. The 1,200-kilometre line had been the kingdom\u2019s main Hormuz bypass, moving on the order of four to five million barrels a day in recent months against a nameplate near seven million. Ras Tanura handled about 90 percent of pre-war Saudi crude exports. After tanker traffic through Hormuz collapsed, Aramco pushed Petroline toward maximum and loaded more from the Red Sea coast. That option is now the damaged one.<\/p>\n

Three pumping stations were damaged, one more than the first industry read, according to a Reuters satellite analysis published on 17 September. Industry estimates for full repairs have been five to six weeks. Bloomberg and later Friday market reporting said Aramco is building a bypass around a damaged section and is aiming to restore about half of pipeline capacity within days. Satellite images dated 16 September showed crews laying and welding temporary pipe around one station. Partial flow, if it returns, does not automatically restore a Yanbu VLCC programme. Houthi forces still hold the Red Sea approaches that make a west-coast loading useful, including Mokha, the Hanish islands and Perim. A half-open Petroline into a constrained Bab el-Mandeb is not the same fixture as a half-open Petroline into an open Red Sea.<\/p>\n

The 60 million barrels are therefore a two-month Ras Tanura-to-Sohar book, not a statement that Yanbu is back. Sixty million barrels over September and October is on the order of one million barrels a day if it is spread evenly, which matches the low end of the 1.0\u20131.5 million barrels-a-day Gulf-export rebound Reuters described. It is also a large number against Thursday\u2019s AIS-visible Hormuz commodity count of four ships and no VLCC in the transit set. The barrels that are moving are not the barrels Kpler is counting as ordinary transits. They are shuttle and STS barrels, some of them dark.<\/p>\n

Sohar STS is now a Saudi crude terminal in all but name<\/h2>\n

Sohar sits on Oman\u2019s Batinah coast, outside the strait, on the Gulf of Oman side that owners have been using for Qatari LNG and other Gulf cargoes that load inside and transfer out. The same mechanism is now being used for Saudi crude. A shuttle lifts at Ras Tanura, runs the southern Omani corridor under whatever facilitation or darkness the owner will accept, and comes alongside a receiving hull off Sohar. The receiving ship then sails for Asia without a counted Hormuz transit of its own. That is why Kito can tell Japanese refiners the supply has not ceased: the title they take can be outside the SEVERE-rated lane even when the molecules crossed it.<\/p>\n

The freight print that sits next to that workaround is already at record territory. Reuters, citing a shipbroking firm on Friday, said the rate to charter a very large crude carrier to load two million barrels in early October from Fujairah to Asia had hit Worldscale 800. Fujairah, like Sohar, is a Gulf of Oman position. A WS 800 Fujairah\u2013Asia VLCC is the price of keeping the long-haul ship out of Hormuz and paying a shuttle, or a fear premium, to get the cargo to the receiving area. It is also why a 60-million-barrel book does not cheapen the next owner\u2019s additional premium. The barrels are moving because someone is paying shuttle economics and Hormuz war-risk on one hull so that the other hull can load in comparatively clearer water.<\/p>\n

STS off Sohar is not a casual lightering. It is two large tankers, often in a war-risk-adjacent anchorage, running a cargo transfer while UKMTO is still logging unnamed projectile strikes inside the strait and while Iran is issuing named destruction warnings for unauthorised transits. The receiving ship\u2019s SMS still needs an STS checklist, fender and hose plan, night\/day limit, abort criteria, a pollution-response brief and a written rule for what happens if a security product lands on the shuttle while the two ships are made fast. The shuttle\u2019s SMS needs the Hormuz standing orders already on this desk: extra lookouts, UAV watch, citadel, fire party, 30-nautical-mile U.S. unit standoff, and a named abort to Fujairah, Khor Fakkan or a Sohar holding area.<\/p>\n

What it changes for fixtures, not for the threat picture<\/h2>\n

JMIC\u2019s threat rating for Hormuz remains SEVERE. UKMTO\u2019s regional assessment has the southern Omani route as the highest-risk corridor, with 22 of 35 projectile strikes since 6 July and engine rooms hit in 24 of those incidents. Iran\u2019s IRGC Navy on Friday named the Togo-flagged products tanker Trend<\/em> and said unauthorised passage would end in destruction. Those products do not pause because Aramco has a two-month STS book. They are the reason the shuttle is the expensive ship.<\/p>\n

The East\u2013West pipeline file remains a separate operational line. Last week\u2019s shutdown followed drone strikes that Saudi officials said came from Iraqi territory. Full restoration in five to six weeks, and a possible half-capacity bypass within days, are industry estimates, not an Aramco circular. Even a restarted Petroline does not, by itself, restore Asian VLCC economics if Bab el-Mandeb stays selective under the Houthi embargo on Saudi-linked shipping. Barrels that reach Yanbu still have to leave the Red Sea. Some will go north toward Suez and SUMED. Some will still need a Cape or a Mediterranean outturn. The Sohar STS programme is Aramco\u2019s way of keeping Asian term and spot customers in barrels while that west-coast question is unresolved.<\/p>\n

For the next fixture, the useful distinction is which party is taking Hormuz. If the sale is FOB Ras Tanura with the buyer nominating the ship, the buyer\u2019s hull is the shuttle. If the sale is delivered or STS Sohar with Hormuz \u201cat Saudi Arabia\u2019s risk,\u201d as Kito described some Japanese supply, the shuttle may be an Aramco-controlled or Aramco-chartered hull and the buyer\u2019s VLCC never enters the strait. War-risk underwriters, P&I and crew contracts have to be written against that split, not against a headline that \u201cSaudi exports have rebounded.\u201d A receiving VLCC that never enters Hormuz can still have a war-risk issue if the additional premium territory has been drawn widely around the Gulf of Oman, or if the shuttle alongside is the ship that is hit.<\/p>\n

What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n