20.9 Million Barrels a Day Flowed Through Hormuz in 2025 as UAE Plans New Fujairah Pipeline
Key Facts
The UAE plans to build an additional pipeline with capacity of 1.5 million barrels a day from Jebel Dhanna to Fujairah by 2027, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The project comes as average oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz reached 20.9 million barrels a day in the first half of 2025, compared with 20.7 million a day in 2024. The volume underscores the strait’s role in global oil flows and places the planned pipeline among efforts to provide an alternative export route. But the plan concerns an additional UAE pipeline to Fujairah and does not confirm details of the route that a report summary attributed to Sharjah National Oil Corporation. Separately, the Associated Press described ADNOC’s parallel project to its existing pipeline as a 300-kilometer project.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says flows through Hormuz in the first half of 2025 accounted for about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption and a quarter of seaborne oil trade. The daily average was 20.9 million barrels during that period, up from 20.7 million in 2024. The figures show the scale of flows through the waterway relative to the alternative capacity currently available. The International Energy Agency estimates that capacity through Saudi Arabia and the UAE at between 3.5 and 5.5 million barrels a day. The agency says the logistics of redirecting large volumes and the supply chains needed to export them have not been tested on a broad scale.
The UAE already has the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline to transport crude oil, extending 400 kilometers from onshore facilities in Habshan to Fujairah. Its original nameplate capacity is 1.5 million barrels a day, while its currently reported capacity is about 1.8 million, according to the International Energy Agency. The agency says the UAE exports about 1.1 million barrels a day of its domestic crude through the route. If the strait were closed, the agency estimates that additional capacity available through the pipeline would reach 700,000 barrels a day. These figures provide context on the existing network, while the planned pipeline from Jebel Dhanna to Fujairah would add another proposed capacity of 1.5 million barrels a day by 2027.
This project differs from the parallel ADNOC pipeline covered by the Associated Press, which said it would be 300 kilometers long and have an estimated cost of $3 billion. The agency said the project aims to increase oil supplies to Fujairah by more than 1.2 million barrels a day. The target completion date was early 2027, but Kpler expected it to be completed in the middle of that year because Fujairah port needed to be expanded. These details should be kept separate from the proposal attributed to Sharjah National Oil Corporation, whose route and destinations could not be verified from an open source based on the available information. The U.S. Energy Information Administration lists the additional UAE pipeline from Jebel Dhanna among its plans for 2027.
The use of pipelines to bypass maritime risks in the region dates back decades; the Associated Press said Saudi Arabia built a pipeline in the 1980s amid concerns that Tehran would disrupt shipping through the strait during the Iran-Iraq war. Overland routes are important in the context of Hormuz flows, which reached 20.9 million barrels a day in the first half of 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The International Energy Agency says available capacity on alternative export routes through Saudi Arabia and the UAE remains estimated at between 3.5 and 5.5 million barrels a day, while logistical challenges in redirecting flows persist. For the Jebel Dhanna–Fujairah pipeline, the plan gives 2027 as the target date. For the parallel ADNOC pipeline, the Associated Press said Kpler expects completion in the middle of 2027, after an earlier estimate of early that year.