{"id":870,"date":"2026-10-01T03:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/satellite-images-confirm-saudi-crude-is-loading-again-at-yanbu\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T03:36:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:36:35","slug":"satellite-images-confirm-saudi-crude-is-loading-again-at-yanbu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/satellite-images-confirm-saudi-crude-is-loading-again-at-yanbu\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellite images confirm Saudi crude is loading again at Yanbu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shipping-tracking firms and trade sources said this week that crude is again loading at Saudi Arabia\u2019s Red Sea port of Yanbu, the first confirmed seaborne lift from that terminal since drone attacks shut the East\u2013West Pipeline, or Petroline, on 11 September. TankerTrackers.com, in a 29 September post on X cited by Reuters, Seatrade Maritime and The Straits Times, said European Space Agency satellite imagery from 27 September showed Saudi Arabia loading nearly 10 million barrels of crude at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz, the terminal south of Yanbu, and that refined-product loadings were also visible. The firm said it had visually identified 40 tankers regardless of activity or proximity to those terminals. Two trade sources separately put crude loadings from Yanbu at about two million barrels a day since last week. That satellite-and-fixture confirmation is the primary for this note. It is not a rewrite of this blog\u2019s 23 September piece on the low-rate pipeline restart, when one China-bound cargo was only scheduled, and it is not a rewrite of the 25 September war-risk file that still had Yanbu loadings yet to resume.<\/p>\n

The Straits Times, using the same Reuters Singapore copy dated 29 September, said pipeline operations resumed on 22 September after the 11 September shutdown, that Aramco had notified customers on the evening of 28 September of its October loading schedule from Yanbu, and that a refiner had loaded a cargo from Yanbu late last week. Aramco did not immediately comment. Kpler, in a 28 September note carried in that copy, estimated current Petroline throughput at around 2.65 million barrels a day and expected it to climb to between three and four million barrels a day in the coming days. A full return to the pre-attack rate of roughly 5.5 million barrels a day could still take another month, Kpler said. Crude inventories at Yanbu rose by roughly one million barrels on 22 September, the first build since the attack. Those figures describe a constrained restart, not a restored wartime Red Sea export programme.<\/p>\n

A named VLCC fixture on a longer, more expensive route<\/h2>\n

Seatrade reported on 30 September that the 2026-built DHT Holdings very large crude carrier DHT Gazelle had been fixed to SK Energy for a Red Sea via Suez Canal voyage to South Korea at 55 million dollars for 270,000 tonnes of crude, according to Tankers International, or about 634,000 dollars a day. Open particulars put DHT Gazelle, IMO 1055155, as a Marshall Islands-flag 2026 VLCC of about 319,000 deadweight tonnes and 161,465 gross tonnes, owned by DHT Gazelle Inc. TradeWinds, writing on 29 September, treated the same fixture as a Red Sea score after Yanbu VLCC loadings had started. The rate sits in the same extreme VLCC market this blog has already used as context: Hormuz transits have printed above one million dollars a day, and a large share of the fleet is tied up in Gulf of Oman ship-to-ship work. Seatrade said about 15 percent of VLCCs were estimated to be waiting in the Gulf of Oman for STS from Arabian Gulf shuttles. The Yanbu fixture does not break that tightness. It adds tonne-miles on a different, still-threatened coast.<\/p>\n

VLCCs lifting Saudi barrels at Yanbu are not using Bab el-Mandeb as a cheap Asia shortcut. Seatrade said that because of the Houthi threat to tankers calling Saudi ports, VLCCs are avoiding the southern Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, producing longer transits via the Suez Canal, including partial unloading and reloading at the SUMED pipeline, then the Cape of Good Hope to Asia. That is the same Houthi rule this blog has carried since mid-September: Mocha, Mayyun and the Hanish islands remain in Houthi hands, and Abdulmalik al-Houthi\u2019s \u201csafe except Saudi\u201d line still treats a Saudi affiliation as a targeting criterion. The 25 September insurance file had quoted war-risk for Saudi-linked tankers calling Yanbu at about 3 percent of hull value, against less than 1 percent in early July, with ports south of Yanbu up to 7 percent. That tape is context. It is not retired by a satellite image of 10 million barrels on the berth. A 55-million-dollar Red Sea\u2013Suez\u2013Korea VLCC stem has to carry that premium, the longer water time, and the residual risk that a Houthi missile or a further pipeline strike stops the next cargo.<\/p>\n

What the restart is, and what it is not<\/h2>\n

This blog\u2019s 23 September note recorded a low-rate Petroline restart after the 11 September Iraq-origin drone stop, with three of 11 pumping stations and two pressure-relief points damaged, a security-source path to about 40 percent of nameplate in a couple of days and a full restart in six to eight weeks, and one Yanbu China cargo scheduled later that Tuesday but not confirmed completed. Reuters on 24 September then said crude was moving to Red Sea-coast refineries but that tanker loading had yet to resume, and that Aramco had told European refiners it was still building a critical mass at Yanbu. Wednesday\u2019s satellite image and the late-week cargo close that gap. They do not close the capacity gap. Kpler\u2019s 2.65 million barrels a day, and the two-million-barrel-a-day loading estimate, sit well below the roughly 5.5 million barrels a day Kpler used as the pre-attack rate and below Petroline\u2019s 7 million-barrel-a-day nameplate, of which about 2 million barrels a day has historically served Red Sea-coast refineries. The Kpler base case in the same 28 September briefing still saw the repaired line operating at about half of pre-attack capacity, with 2.5 to 2.7 million barrels a day still needing an eastward route through Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The eastward pivot remains the larger book. Kpler said Ras Tanura loadings had surged to around 6.5 million barrels a day from 1.5 million in early September, that September VLCC Saudi loadings at eastern ports had risen to 3.5 million barrels a day across 39 vessels, and that Aramco had placed roughly 90 million barrels of September\/October-loading crude with Asian buyers since the outage began. European refiners still risked losing October-loading Saudi term supplies. On a seven-day average through 22 September, Kpler put Hormuz crude transits, including Gulf of Oman STS, at 9 million barrels a day, up from a late-July low of 2.2 million and about 60 percent of the 2025 average. Adding net gains from Yanbu and Fujairah lifted Middle East crude exports to just under 80 percent of pre-conflict levels. Those percentages are a recovery print. They are not a Hormuz reopen, not an AIS recovery, and not a reason to treat the southern Omani track or a Yanbu berth as a safe corridor.<\/p>\n

Sidi Kerir, Egypt\u2019s SUMED Mediterranean terminal, resumed loadings on 22 September after a 10-day hiatus, Kpler said, but tankers remained queued offshore as restrictions limited access for much of the commercial fleet. That is a Mediterranean constraint on the same longer-route workaround, not a Red Sea all-clear. President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s 24 September offer of soldiers, radars and air defences to protect Yanbu, already on this blog, has not been reported as systems in place. It is not war-risk cover and it is not a Bab el-Mandeb escort. Operators should keep those files in the same briefing and not merge them into one European shield over a Saudi loading window.<\/p>\n

Operational implications for a Saudi Red Sea stem<\/h2>\n

A VLCC or Suezmax that now has a Yanbu or Al Muajjiz laycan is going back to a terminal that was dark for cargo for most of the second half of September, on a pipeline that is still short of three damaged pumping stations, into a war-risk market that prices a Saudi connection as the problem. The commercial temptation is to treat the 27 September satellite image and the October programme notice as a return to the old Red Sea workaround that avoided Hormuz. The operational file is narrower. Throughput is a few million barrels a day, not 5.5. Loadings are confirmed by imagery and by two trade sources, not by an Aramco public statement. The Asia voyage is being routed north through Suez and then the Cape, not south through Bab el-Mandeb. Houthi control of the Yemeni Red Sea coast is unchanged. A further strike on Petroline, or on the terminal, would again halt the stem.<\/p>\n

Masters and company security officers should treat a Yanbu call as a Saudi-affiliation voyage for targeting, insurance and charter-party purposes. Register with UKMTO and, where relevant, Aspides. Do not assume that \u201csafe except Saudi\u201d is a standing exemption for a non-Saudi flag if the cargo, the charterer or a recent Saudi port call creates the association that Houthis have said they will hit. Keep the 25 September 3 percent Yanbu and up-to-7 percent southern-port quotes in the war-risk conversation until a broker shows a new tape. Class, terminal and vetting will also want to know whether the ship is coming off a Gulf of Oman STS shuttle book or a Hormuz dark transit; those are different fatigue, manning and damage-control stories from a Red Sea load-port call.<\/p>\n

Charterers should not read the DHT Gazelle number as a market that has eased because Yanbu is back. Seatrade said the resumption had not immediately moved record-high large-tanker rates. A 55-million-dollar Red Sea\u2013Korea VLCC is expensive because the ship is scarce, the route is long, and the alternative is still a projectile-exposed Hormuz or STS chain. If Petroline stays at half rate, the eastward Ras Tanura and Sohar STS programmes remain the swing barrel. This blog\u2019s 26 September Gulf of Oman STS ceiling piece still applies: extra shuttle demand has already cut ship availability. A few million barrels a day at Yanbu relieves that book only at the margin.<\/p>\n

What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n