Saudi Oil Bypass Line Shut After 4 Pumping Stations Hit

The outages threaten a long-term strategic goal to raise the kingdom's bypass capacity to 10 million bpd from a nominal 7 million bpd within three years. To mitigate immediate losses, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is converting a natural gas pipeline to transport crude, which will add 1.2 million bpd of capacity within 8 weeks. This arrangement is temporary and must be reverted to gas service by May to feed domestic power plants during the summer months.