Middle Eastern crude exports have climbed to 16.33m barrels per day in September, the highest level since the war with Iran began in late February and just under 80% of pre-conflict volumes, according to updated Kpler data cited by Reuters.

The figure covers exports from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran. Before the conflict, February exports stood at 19.51m barrels per day.

Flows through the Strait of Hormuz have recovered particularly sharply. Kpler estimates September crude movements through the strait at around 9.72m barrels per day, including ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman. As recently as late July, those flows had fallen as low as 2.2m barrels per day.

Saudi Arabia has driven much of the rebound. The kingdom's exports are expected at around 5.4m barrels per day this month — more than double August's 2.45m barrels per day.

Ras Tanura back at the centre

Ras Tanura has returned to the centre of Saudi export activity following the September attack on the kingdom's East-West Pipeline. Shipments from the Gulf terminal have climbed to around 3.25m barrels per day in September from 929,000 barrels per day in August.

The scale of the recovery is visible in tonnage terms. Kpler counted 19 VLCCs — each carrying roughly 2m barrels of Saudi crude — exiting Hormuz in a single week. That is roughly 38m barrels of cargo moved on the largest tanker class in a seven-day window, a rate of loading that has direct implications for VLCC availability and spot rates in the Middle East Gulf market.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has restarted tanker loadings at Yanbu on the Red Sea after repairing the East-West Pipeline, restoring an export outlet that bypasses Hormuz entirely. The dual-route configuration gives the kingdom redundancy it lacked when the pipeline was knocked out in September.

Kpler estimates current pipeline throughput at around 2.65m barrels per day, rising towards 3m-4m barrels per day over the coming days. A return to the pre-attack rate of roughly 5.5m barrels per day could take another month, according to the data.

Trump claims record Hormuz flows

US president Donald Trump has been quick to seize on the recovering flows. "Last night, we took a record amount of oil out from the Hormuz Strait, more than we took out before the war," Trump told reporters on Sunday.

Independent tracking appears to support the direction of the claim, if not yet the record. TankerTrackers.com, using European Space Agency satellite imagery, identified nearly 10m barrels of crude being loaded at Yanbu and Al Muajjiz on September 27, with 40 tankers visible around the terminals.

Commercial read-through

For tanker owners, the recovery in Gulf loadings restores cargo volume to the world's largest crude export market after months of disruption. The 19 VLCC departures counted by Kpler in one week point to firm demand for the largest tonnage on the Gulf-to-Asia and long-haul routes, and the concentration of loadings at Ras Tanura re-establishes the terminal as the primary departure point for eastbound and westbound voyages alike.

For charterers and refiners, the reopening of the Yanbu route matters as much as the Hormuz recovery. Red Sea loadings provide a Hormuz bypass at a time when regional risk premia remain sensitive to any escalation, and the 40 tankers observed around Yanbu and Al Muajjiz suggest shippers are already using the alternative corridor in volume.

For forwarders and cargo interests with exposure to Red Sea routing, the return of laden crude tankers to the corridor adds traffic to a waterway that has seen diverted container flows since 2024 — a factor in insurance pricing and voyage planning.

The trajectory now hinges on pipeline throughput. If the East-West line reaches the 3m-4m barrels per day Kpler expects within days and climbs back toward 5.5m barrels per day within a month, Gulf export capacity will approach full restoration, tightening VLCC supply and stabilizing crude availability on both the Hormuz and Red Sea corridors.