Asia's dependence on the Strait of Hormuz runs far deeper than Saudi and Emirati bypass pipelines can address. The US Energy Information Administration estimated in the first half of 2025 that 89% of crude oil and condensate moving through the strait went to Asian markets. China, India, Japan and South Korea alone accounted for 74% of those flows.

The arithmetic of substitution is stark. According to the International Energy Agency, close to 20 million bpd of oil transited Hormuz in 2025 — around a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade. The IEA puts available Saudi and Emirati pipeline capacity able to redirect crude away from the strait at roughly 3.5-5.5 million bpd. The EIA estimates the principal Saudi and Emirati bypass systems at about 4.7 million bpd.

Several million barrels a day of alternative capacity matter in a crisis. They can soften a supply shock and give exporters options. They cannot replace normal traffic through the strait.

Saudi bypass tested by September attacks

Saudi Arabia can move crude west through its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea. The UAE can send oil to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, bypassing Hormuz altogether. ADNOC is also building a second pipeline to Fujairah, intended to double export capacity through the port when it becomes operational in 2027.

The Saudi experience in September showed the limits of treating extra pipeline capacity as equivalent to energy security. On September 10, the East-West Pipeline was hit in several attacks in the Riyadh and Madinah regions. The Saudi Ministry of Energy said the line was shut as a precaution while technical teams assessed its integrity. Reuters reported on September 22 that operations had restarted at a reduced rate.

Only months earlier, the same pipeline had demonstrated why bypass routes matter. In the first quarter of 2026, Saudi Aramco raised flows through the East-West system to its maximum capacity of 7 million bpd while shipping through Hormuz was constrained, describing it as a "critical supply artery."

The episode does not make the investment look misguided. It shows something more practical: a backup route can be extremely valuable and still remain vulnerable to the wider conflict that made the backup necessary.

Nameplate capacity also tells only part of the story. Pipelines rely on pumping stations, electricity, storage, communications, export terminals and safe maritime access at the other end. If several of those elements face the same conflict, a route that looks separate on a map may be less independent in practice.

LNG has no pipeline workaround

For Asian buyers, LNG compounds the problem. The IEA estimates that 93% of Qatar's LNG exports and 96% of the UAE's normally pass through Hormuz. Together those flows account for about 19% of global LNG trade. In 2025, almost 90% of LNG exported through the strait was destined for Asia, covering roughly 27% of the region's LNG imports.

There is no oil-pipeline-style solution for those volumes. Qatar sends some pipeline gas to the UAE and Oman through the Dolphin system, but spare capacity is limited, and Oman's LNG terminals have been operating close to full utilization. Moving large quantities of Qatari LNG to another coast would require more than a new pipe — it would mean recreating liquefaction, storage and export infrastructure that took years to build and billions of dollars to finance.

The LNG market earlier this year illustrated how adjustment actually happens. The IEA's Q3 2026 Gas Market Report found that between March and June, LNG loadings from Qatar and the UAE fell by 35 billion cubic meters compared with a year earlier. Producers outside the Persian Gulf raised output by about 27 bcm, replacing roughly three-quarters of the lost volumes. Asian buyers did not overcome the disruption by finding a new route around Hormuz. The adjustment came through additional supply elsewhere, higher prices and some demand response.

The watch item

For Asian governments, the lesson points to a broader definition of energy resilience. More Saudi and Emirati bypass capacity is useful, and the new Fujairah pipeline should add flexibility when it starts up in 2027. But the region's energy security cannot rest on pipeline engineering in the Persian Gulf alone. Supplier diversification, strategic inventories, flexible LNG contracts, adequate storage and regasification capacity, and the ability to switch between crude grades all matter when transport routes become unreliable.

The same principle applies to producers. Adding a second route improves the system, but the value of that redundancy depends on how many risks the two routes still share — from power and storage to terminals, communications and security.

Hormuz is unlikely to become irrelevant; the volumes are too large, and LNG is particularly difficult to reroute. A more realistic aim is to make a disruption in the strait less damaging to the economies that depend on it. For Asia, that means treating bypass pipelines as one layer of insurance rather than the insurance policy itself.