London —
Attacks on commercial ships in the Middle East this month have all but closed the vital Strait of Hormuz to tankers, upending the oil market and sending producers in search of other routes to get their fuel to buyers around the world.
One of the few alternatives goes through the Red Sea. Saudi Aramco, the world’s top oil producer, said last week that it would reroute millions of barrels of crude – ordinarily loaded onto ships in the Persian Gulf and transiting the strait – via a pipeline running to Saudi Arabia’s western port