Saudi Arabia has restarted operations at its East-West pipeline and could resume exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu later Tuesday, a report said.
Drone attacks forced Saudi Arabia to shut the key pipeline earlier this month, halting crude loadings at the kingdom's Yanbu port.
The resumption of supplies Tuesday helped to drive selling on global oil markets, traders said. Brent crude futures fell by more than $2 a barrel to its lowest since Sept. 8.
Since the disruption to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz following the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, OPEC's leading oil exporter has been using the pipeline to reroute around 4 million barrels per day, around 4% of global supply, to Yanbu.
The pipeline was pumping at a low rate after its restart, Reuters said, citing sources briefed on the matter. State oil firm Saudi Aramco was seeking to increase the pumping rate to 4 million barrels per day, one of them said, without saying when this could be achieved.
The pipeline will resume crude supply to Aramco refineries located on the Red Sea coast, one of the sources said, adding that one cargo was scheduled to load at Yanbu later Tuesday. The person said it would be bound for China.
Another two trading sources said traders were getting ready for Saudi oil loadings by moving tankers to Egypt's Mediterranean Port Said for ship-to-ship transfers and also to Sidi Kerir.
