Faced with disruptions to its primary oil export routes through the Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb straits driven by Iran and Houthi rebels, Saudi Arabia is forced to reroute petroleum shipments through Egypt's Suez Canal.
While the kingdom has previously used the Suez route to export some of its oil, it has not tested it as the main export outlet for decades.
Unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, when Saudi Arabia's top oil buyers sat in Europe and the United States, the majority of its buyers today are in Asia.
To get to Asia, tankers with Saudi oil will have to circumnavigate the whole of Africa, adding around a month to their journey.
It takes only 19 days for a tanker to sail from Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu to Taiwan via Bab el-Mandeb.
A route via Suez, the Mediterranean and Gibraltar and then around the Cape of Good Hope takes 48 days, according to Kpler and LSEG shipping data.
The journey would double fuel costs alone to around $2.87 million from $1.26 million, according to Reuters calculations using LSEG data.
Crossing the Suez Canal adds $1 million in fees, according to LSEG.
Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb/Suez Canal have been disrupted by conflict in the Middle East in recent years, stoking higher prices and inflation across the globe.
Transits through the key shipping bottlenecks this year have been roughly one-third of what they were in 2023.
Saudi Arabia rerouted most of its oil exports from the Gulf to the Red Sea when the U.S.-Iran war disrupted shipments via Hormuz in February. The Houthis attacked ships in the Red Sea this week, making the workaround unsafe and encouraging the kingdom to send oil via the Suez Canal.
Big tankers will need to sail via the Suez half empty due to restrictions and top up in the Mediterranean, according to Energy Aspects.
To achieve that, Saudi Arabia could partially unload tankers into the Sumed pipeline, a 320-kilometer (200-mile) oil link bypassing the Suez and connecting Ain Sokhna oil terminal on the Red Sea to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean.
The pipeline can transport up to 2.5 million barrels per day out of the kingdom's total exports of 7 million bpd.