Saudi Arabia's Yanbu oil hub in Houthi crosshairs

Perched on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, the port of Yanbu has become a lifeline for the world's top oil exporter, even as it comes under attack from Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi forces.

Yanbu is linked to the kingdom's oil-producing regions on the Gulf coast by the East-West Pipeline, also known as Petroline.

The port and pipeline have played a key role since the outbreak of the Middle East war, helping Riyadh ship crude and fuel to global markets.

They have allowed Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Gulf that Iran blockaded after the conflict erupted in February.

Crude cargoes loaded at Yanbu can pass south through the Bab al-Mandab strait towards India and the rest of Asia, or head north through the Red Sea towards Egypt.

But the port, which hosts major storage and refining sites run by state oil giant Saudi Aramco, has been targeted by the Houthis since July.

The Iran-backed group has also been attacking Saudi tankers. This month, it seized control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea's narrow southern entrance.

Commodity-tracking platform Kpler estimates that around 3.2 million barrels a day crossed the strait towards the Indian Ocean before the Houthi attacks.

But those flows plummeted to near zero by August, Kpler said.

The East-West Pipeline, with a capacity of five million barrels a day -- plus two million routed to Yanbu's refineries -- was also hit in an attack launched from Iraq this month, forcing its closure.

The disruptions have helped drive oil prices higher, sending fuel costs, particularly diesel, soaring.

President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday France would send military support to help shield the key oil terminal from Houthi attacks.

According to consultancy Rystad Energy, a one-month interruption to exports from Yanbu would remove between 78-120 million barrels from world markets.

While other producers could partly offset that loss, a prolonged outage would be harder to absorb.

After three months, between 230-360 million barrels would be at risk.