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Escalating maritime disruptions in the Middle East have forced Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf energy producers to radically alter how they bring crude oil to international markets. With traditional export passages severely restricted, Oman’s deepwater hub at Sohar has emerged as a focal point for clandestine, ship-to-ship oil transfers. These offshore maneuvers allow tankers to exchange vast quantities of crude at sea, effectively circumventing the geopolitical blockades that have paralyzed normal shipping lanes.
The regional energy crunch deepened after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed by Iran in response to its ongoing war with the United States and Israel. Historically accounting for nearly one-fifth of pre-war global petroleum transit, the narrow chokepoint has been leveraged by Tehran as a pivotal bargaining chip during negotiations. Compounding the maritime crisis, the critical Bab al-Mandeb strait has fallen under the control of the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, leaving commercial cargo operators increasingly unwilling to navigate the surrounding waterways due to severe security threats.
Saudi Arabia’s export options narrowed considerably following targeted drone strikes by Houthi forces that damaged the kingdom’s crucial East-West pipeline. Spanning approximately 1,200 kilometers (746 miles), the vital conduit connects Saudi Arabia’s primary oil-producing fields in the east directly to the western port of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast. With the pipeline incapacitated and access to Red Sea shipping routes lost, Riyadh has been deprived of its primary overland alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Faced with mounting economic pressures and soaring global oil prices, Saudi Arabia and its regional partners have increasingly resorted to covert maritime tactics. Industry analysts note the irony that the United States and its regional allies are now adopting the very shadow fleet methods that Tehran has utilized for years to bypass international trade restrictions and export its own crude supply.
Geographically, two primary coastal hubs have become central to these rerouting strategies: Sohar in Oman and the Port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. Situated just outside the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, Sohar is an expansive deepwater industrial center equipped to handle massive bulk cargo, container traffic, and petrochemicals. Crucially, its location allows international carriers to avoid the dangerous Gulf bottleneck while retaining direct overland logistics links into the broader Arabian Peninsula.
Further along the coast, the UAE’s Port of Fujairah serves as a world-renowned crude storage and bunkering center on the country's eastern shores. Fujairah’s expansive open-ocean anchorage provides an ideal offshore staging ground for vessels attempting to load energy supplies without entering the contested inner waters of the Persian Gulf.
Operating in these outer zones remains fraught with danger. Both Sohar and Fujairah lie close to boundaries demarcated by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a regulatory entity recently established by Iran to govern navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces have repeatedly launched attacks against commercial vessels accused of using unauthorized passage routes, specifically targeting vessels navigating the southern corridor near Omani territorial waters.
Despite these maritime threats, international backing has quietly bolstered the offshore operations. Reports indicate that the United States military has been actively assisting dozens of these secretive ship-to-ship oil transfers since early May, aiming to prevent a total collapse of Gulf energy flows and stabilize international energy markets.
The technical execution of ship-to-ship (STS) transfers requires precise coordination and calm sea conditions to avert catastrophic maritime accidents. Typically, a larger receiving vessel anchors or maintains a steady heading while a maneuvering tanker carefully approaches. The hulls are positioned parallel to one another, cushioned by heavy pneumatic rubber fenders slung along the ship sides to absorb rolling ocean impacts.
To maintain operational secrecy and avoid detection by hostile forces or tracking bodies, crews routinely disable their automated tracking systems (AIS). Once vessels are moored side by side and mandatory safety checks are finalized, heavy-duty hoses are connected, and onboard pumps transfer crude or liquefied natural gas across the vessels while operators closely monitor pressure levels and prevailing weather conditions.
Market specialists emphasize that while these complex maneuvers provide a vital lifeline, they cannot fully replace standard export capacity. Rishi Rajanala, a research specialist in Oil Americas at LSEG Data & Analytics, noted that following the loss of the East-West pipeline, shipping crude through Gulf terminals and organizing STS transfers outside the strait has become Riyadh's primary recourse. However, Rajanala cautioned that overall volumes remain dictated by tanker availability, soaring insurance premiums, and elevated freight rates, keeping totals well below pre-war baselines.
Recent trade data nonetheless shows a marked surge in these alternative flows. Rahul Choudhary, Vice President of Upstream Research at Rystad Energy, observed that exports transiting the Hormuz route reached over 2 million barrels per day during the first two weeks of September—representing an increase of roughly 1 million barrels per day compared to August levels.
This upward trajectory is expected to expand further as state-owned Saudi Aramco actively offers additional crude loadings to Asian refiners directly out of Sohar. Choudhary indicated that Saudi Arabia is poised to lean even more heavily on dark tanker operations in the coming weeks to compensate for the operational shutdown at Yanbu.
The use of shadow transfer operations is not limited to Saudi Arabia alone. Independent tracking data and trade reports indicate that other Gulf producers, including Kuwait and Qatar, have also turned to similar ship-to-ship transfers outside the strait to keep their oil and gas exports moving toward international buyers.
Nonetheless, maritime experts warn that these unregulated offshore operations carry immense environmental and operational hazards. STS transfers are inherently less efficient and significantly more dangerous than standard terminal loadings. The growing reliance on aging tankers with dubious maintenance histories, uninspected transfer hoses, unmonitored voyages without active transponders, and inadequate insurance coverage substantially elevates the risk of collisions and devastating open-sea oil spills.
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