The United Arab Emirates is accelerating construction of a new oil pipeline designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, with the project expected to be operational by 2027. Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed directed state energy company ADNOC — the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — to fast-track the West-East Pipeline project at an executive board meeting on Friday, saying the company is "well positioned as a responsible and reliable global energy producer" able to increase output "when export constraints allow."

The new pipeline will run to Fujairah, a port city on the UAE's eastern coast that sits on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Strait of Hormuz. It is expected to roughly double the UAE's existing export capacity through that route. The UAE already operates the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP), also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, which can carry up to 1.8 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). A second pipeline could bring total capacity to around 3.6 million bpd, moving the UAE closer to Saudi Arabia's export capacity, which stands at roughly 7 million bpd via its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

The move comes amid a sustained disruption to the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20% of the world's oil and seaborne gas previously flowed. Iran effectively closed the strait following US and Israeli military strikes launched on 28 February, throttling Gulf oil exports and sending global energy prices sharply higher. Since then, Iran has progressively expanded its declared zone of maritime control, including a new "extended operations zone" stretching nearly 500 kilometres, and there have been drone attacks on an ADNOC tanker and strikes near Fujairah's oil facilities. The UAE has described these incidents as unacceptable aggression and economic coercion. ADNOC was forced to temporarily suspend some oil shipments in April, and production — which stood at around 3.4 million bpd before the conflict — reportedly fell by more than half after the closure.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia remain the only Gulf producers with pipelines that can export crude entirely outside the strait. Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and Bahrain depend almost entirely on the waterway for their trade. Oman enjoys a long coastline on the Gulf of Oman but relies on different export arrangements. Saudi Aramco's CEO Amin Nasser has called his country's East-West pipeline a "critical lifeline," noting that Aramco raised its capacity to 7 million bpd within eight days, sustaining roughly 60% of pre-war export volumes.

The pipeline announcement arrives just weeks after the UAE withdrew from OPEC, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, after 60 years of membership — a decision framed as serving its long-term national energy strategy. The new infrastructure reinforces that pivot: with greater independent pipeline capacity, the UAE can pursue higher production targets regardless of how long the Hormuz disruption lasts or what shape any eventual resolution takes. ADNOC has set a production capacity target of 5 million bpd, a goal that has been brought forward by three years, underscoring the degree to which the regional crisis is reshaping Gulf energy strategy for the long term.