2 bn barrels of crude lost in West Asia since war

Chennai: Around 2 billion barrels of crude oil and condensate production have been lost in the past seven months of the West Asia crisis, and 5 million barrels per day remain offline compared to the levels in February when the crisis started.

While the West Asia war continues unabated and shows no signs of slowing, tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen escalated in recent weeks. Middle East crude and condensate outages continue to reshape global crude markets and cumulative Middle East production outages surpassed 2 billion barrels, finds Kpler.

As of 6 October, roughly 5 mbd of Middle Eastern crude and condensate production remained offline against February 2026 levels, with a large share coming from Iran.

However, total Middle East crude and condensate exports have temporarily returned to pre-war levels in recent weeks, helped by UAE output above its pre-war level and a likely temporary Saudi crude supply ramp-up to near its 12 Mbd capacity at the end of last month.

A rise in Saudi supply comes as East-West pipeline flows have recovered strongly. Saudi officials have said that the operations resumed five to six days after the pipeline was hit and that flows are back at 5.8 Mbd.

However, the threat of further attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure continues to cloud the outlook for sustained high output in the coming weeks, so Kpler expects the kingdom's crude supply to average around 9 Mbd this month.

A large portion of the ongoing supply outages continue to stem from Iran, which is currently producing at levels that largely reflect domestic demand, with onshore crude inventories only having limited amounts of additional spare capacity remaining.