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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6087 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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Actual conditions in the Strait are unknown. Everyone's lying (except maybe CENTCOM, and they don't say much) and always has been. Gas prices are going up despite the summer demand peak being passed. The Houthis have the mandate of heaven and are pretty much rolling up government and Saudi forces and could stop traffic in the Bab-al-Mandeb at any time; they can also continue to threaten the entire Red Sea. The East-West pipeline was hit and is shut down. Iran is cut off from oil sales, but they're fanatics who don't care about the well-being of their population, so they have 90 million people to basically feed into its war machine to survive until the US can't take it any more (2029 at the latest). Not really looking good at the moment.

The East West pipeline should be bigger news. It is like 6-7 million barrels a day. I don't know much about pipelines so I don't know how serious the damage is. I'd believe anything from "months to repair" to "we've already restored most of the capacity". If I was going to make any predictions about oil in the short term, I'd want boots on the ground there.

Edit: Looks like half the capacity will be restored shortly and it was running below peak capacity anyway as Persian Gulf has become viable again.

Nevertheless, that pipeline was a big part of the reason the doomer bears were wrong about oil.

I'd believe anything from "months to repair" to "we've already restored most of the capacity".

If you can build a pipeline, you can also fix one -- "however long it would have taken to build however many feet of pipeline got blown up + time overhead for general setup" would be a good first guess. Of course if a pumping station gets hit or something it will take a little longer to get everything in place, but I'd think "days not weeks" when shipping fees on 6-7 MBpD are on the line...

At least one pumping station was hit.

https://archive.is/mwyPR

In the immediate aftermath AP cited an official (no mention of Saudi or US) indicated 3 to 5 weeks for a full repair.

Repairing the damage, including at a major pumping facility, could take three to five weeks, the officials, who have been briefed on the matter, told The Associated Press

https://apnews.com/article/yemen-houthis-saudi-shipping-mandeb-8c18d82c109a8ea91347ce53c0096c53

The US also recently announced that they can no longer support all-night operations in the strait and will be limiting support to predetermined windows.

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