Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTIrina SlavSun, June 7, 2026 at 11:00 PM GMT+2 5 min readPersian Gulf oil exporters are scrambling to reroute their crude from ports to pipelines to keep the world running and keep their oil money flowing and fueling their economies. Sanction waivers abound. Venezuela’s oil output has shot up to 1.25 million barrels daily. The world of energy after the end of the war in the Middle East will be a very different one from what we’ve become accustomed to over the last five years.When the United States and Israel first fired on Iran, the overwhelming assumption was that first, Iran would never close the Strait of Hormuz, and two, after the closure became a fact, that it would only last for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks tops. Then, when it became abundantly clear that there is no expiry date on the Strait closure, oil exporters finally started making contingency plans.News about pipeline plans in the Persian Gulf includes the UAE, which eyes an operational pipeline to the port of Fujairah by next year, demonstrating just how urgent the alternative route is to one of the largest oil exporters in the Middle East. The UAE’s exit from OPEC highlighted the urgency as well, even though it was seen as a pivot to more energy policy independence. It was, but it can also be interpreted as a move to make sure the oil flows.Related: Oil Markets Stop Believing Trump’s Peace NarrativeFor years, the UAE has been working to boost its crude oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day by 2027. To that end, the UAE had consistently demanded that it should be allowed in the OPEC and OPEC+ production deals to use more of its growing spare capacity—and it has indeed been allowed to do so. The country, alongside Saudi Arabia, is one of the few in the region—and the world—that held spare production capacity before the Middle East war began.Saudi Arabia itself is a case in point: the kingdom has been using its East-West pipeline to bypass the Hormuz blockade, becoming an example of actual contingency planning and oil flow diversification in case of trouble in the neighborhood. Now, even Iraq is talking about boosting its pipeline capacity up to threefold—and doing it within three months.Crude oil production from Iraq’s southern fields has plunged by 70% since the start of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, with the average production at 1.3 million barrels per day, compared with 4.3 million bpd before the war began. This makes OPEC’s number-two perhaps the most severely affected oil producer in the Gulf, because it is almost entirely reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for its exports.Terms and Privacy PolicyPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info