The only bypass to the open ocean
The Abu Dhabi crude pipeline runs from Habshan to Fujairah, the one major Hormuz alternative that reaches the Indian Ocean directly rather than the Red Sea. Its capacity is reported at just under two million barrels a day — real, and a fraction of what the strait normally carries. Fujairah has been struck repeatedly, which is the point most often missed about a bypass: it is infrastructure, and infrastructure is reachable.
Hardening rather than hedging
The UAE closed its embassy in Tehran on 1 March 2026 and, during the war, permitted Israeli air-defence systems and personnel to operate from its territory — reported as a first. The Abraham Accords relationship has deepened under conditions that might have been expected to strain it. This is the clearest divergence within the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members' responses to the war have differed materially.
Leaving the cartel
The withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ was announced on 28 April 2026, the same day Gulf leaders met in Jeddah, and took effect on 1 May. It removed roughly an eighth of OPEC's output from coordinated production policy. The stated rationale was national interest and production ambition rather than the war, and Vigil records it as an energy-governance change with a wartime date rather than asserting a causal link.
Elsewhere in Iran–Gulf
Last reviewed2026-09-04