Saudi Arabia's bypass line would cover a quarter of the barrels Hormuz stops moving

Twenty million barrels a day at a hundred dollars a barrel is two billion dollars of crude crossing 21 miles of water, every day, when the corridor works normally ^[1]. On the disrupted days cryptobriefing.com describes, the flow ran at roughly two million barrels ^[7]. That leaves about eighteen million barrels, near 1.8 billion dollars of cargo at that price, not moving through the strait ^[2]. Saudi Arabia's East-West line bypasses Hormuz altogether, and at 4 to 5 million barrels a day it would cover about a quarter of that gap ^[9][3]. It was shut after a drone attack the report attributes to Iranian-backed militias operating from Iraq ^[8].

The strait carries about a fifth of world oil supply ^[3]. A day at two million barrels therefore takes something like 18% of world supply off the water ^[7], and a sustained loss of that size does not clear at a hundred dollars. Brent went past a hundred in September 2026, building on the spikes that followed the June attacks ^[10].

Transits fell further than the barrels did. Five to ten ships against a pre-conflict norm above 130 a day is 4 to 8 percent of normal traffic ^[4], while flows held near 10 percent of normal ^[5], so what still sailed on those days was weighted toward loaded crude. At the low end, at least 120 transits a day did not happen ^[6].

Insurance is where a running cost registers before Brent does. The account says premiums for strait transits have climbed dramatically and that underwriters revisit their risk models with every new UKMTO advisory ^[11]. It gives no percentage for the increase and no count of the days that ran at the low transit and flow levels ^[12].

Two readings fit this record. In one, the closures are episodes that inventory and spare capacity absorb, and Brent above a hundred already pays for the risk. In the other, the East-West outage took away the relief valve, and the next closure has no bypass to lean on ^[9]. I lean to the second, because the vessel strike came within days of the pipeline shutdown ^[13] and the conflict has already survived attempted truces without normal passage resuming ^[5]. What would settle it is the transit count: back above 130 a day and September's price is history, a fortnight in single digits and a hundred dollars is the floor ^[6].