[UPDATE] Saudi Arabia suspends loadings at its last open oil terminal; September cargoes cancelled

The world's largest oil exporter may have shipped no crude for three days. Saudi Aramco suspended loadings at Yanbu — the Red Sea terminal that had become its last wartime outlet — after drone strikes launched from Iraq shut the 1,200-kilometre East-West pipeline on Friday, Sept. 11. Ship-tracking firm Vortexa said satellite observation showed no Saudi cargo leaving a Red Sea port since Saturday. Reuters reported buyers were told some September-loading cargoes are cancelled, and Argus Media reported every Saudi cargo scheduled for the final ten days of September could be at risk — a disruption traders now see running into October. Why there is no route left. The pipeline carried about 4 million barrels a day — roughly 4% of world supply — around the Strait of Hormuz, closed to normal traffic since the war began Feb. 28. The Houthi blockade declared in July had already driven Saudi shipments through Bab el-Mandeb toward zero. Yanbu was the last door. Saudi production last month fell to its lowest since 1990, and the terminal holds about 22 million barrels — four to five days of exports at full rate. The damage. Vantor satellite images show the al-Mesabaah pumping station charred. Estimates given to Reuters range from partial resumption during repairs to six weeks offline; two officials told the Associated Press the pipeline will be mostly out of service for weeks. The price of what still moves. Some crude still leaves the Gulf dark — transponders off, ship-to-ship transfers — at about half its pre-war volume. Chartering a supertanker on the Gulf-to-China run now costs $1.035 million a day, the first time the benchmark has crossed $1 million (Baltic Exchange, Sept. 14); before the war, on Feb. 20, it cost $157,000 — and that was already a record February. Freight is now about a quarter of the delivered price of that crude. It was roughly 5% before the war. What it means. The IEA already counts this as the largest oil-supply disruption on record — March's loss of 10.1 million barrels a day was nearly double the Iranian Revolution's and more than twice the 1973 embargo's 4.5 million. Yanbu closing deepens it again: Brent settled at $108 Tuesday, some physical cargoes in Europe cleared $130, and U.S. diesel passed $6 a gallon on Friday, a record. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise rates Wednesday into that inflation.