{"id":25385,"date":"2026-03-18T17:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/25385\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:01:12","slug":"red-sea-fix-china-bound-oil-tankers-tap-saudi-plan-to-bypass-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/25385\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sea fix? China-bound oil tankers tap Saudi plan to bypass Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Saudi Arabia is activating its Red Sea \u201cPlan B\u201d to divert crude via the port of Yanbu, allowing tankers \u2013 including Chinese very large crude carriers (VLCCs) \u2013 to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, though analysts warn the route has limited capacity.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">New Vista, a VLCC owned by China Merchants Energy Shipping, had departed from Yanbu and was bound for Quanzhou in south China\u2019s Fujian province, where it is expected to arrive on April 3, according to vessel-tracking data platform Myvessel.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The oil tanker had approached the Strait of Hormuz on March 1 but did not transit the strategic waterway. That same day, at least three tankers near ports in the United Arab Emirates and Oman were struck by projectiles, causing fires and crew casualties.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">New Vista instead altered course towards the Red Sea, arriving at Yanbu on March 11 and departing on March 13 after loading. More tankers in the Red Sea are now en route to the port for similar crude oil pickups.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/saudi-aramco?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Saudi Aramco<\/a>, the world\u2019s leading oil producer, announced last week that it was redirecting a larger share of crude flows to the Red Sea through its 7 million-barrel-per-day East-West Pipeline to bypass Persian Gulf export terminals.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe Yanbu route is open to all international buyers, but China-bound cargoes are expected to take a significant share, given that China is a major customer of Saudi Aramco,\u201d said Xu Muyu, a senior crude oil analyst at Kpler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia is activating its Red Sea \u201cPlan B\u201d to divert crude via the port of Yanbu, allowing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[9990,262,12143,12142,496,102,708,34,37,6457,1000,50,6283,101,12144,51],"class_list":{"0":"post-25385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-bab-el-mandeb","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-china-merchants-energy-shipping","11":"tag-east-west-pipeline","12":"tag-gaza","13":"tag-hormuz","14":"tag-houthi","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-kpler","18":"tag-red-sea","19":"tag-saudi-arabia","20":"tag-saudi-aramco","21":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","22":"tag-united-kingdom-maritime-trade-operations-centre","23":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116251255518381097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}