๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ป ๐ซ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐๐ฑ๐ถ ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ฎ’๐ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ช๐ถ๐น๐น ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐ ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ป “๐๐ฎ๐๐”. ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ช๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ง๐ต๐ผ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐ง๐ฟ๐ ๐ข๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐ง๐ต๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ ๐ ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ต๐. First, let me say plainly that I love the desert and the Arab cultures. But it does shape a timeline the media does not understand because they are talking about something they have never experienced. Lots of people on
@X are saying the Saudi East-West pipeline and its pumping stations will be back online in days!?! I have worked these deserts, in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, and that is not how it goes. Even if it is “Expedited”, you are still looking at a month at the very least, and realistically one to three. You have to first understand what the work actually is.
This is not a “gas station attendant” tightening a few bolts or replacing a motor. A pumping station hit by a ballistic missile has to be completely demolished, cleared, re-engineered and rebuilt, from the ground and concrete upwards, often with newer technology because the stations are decades old anyways and the original parts no longer exist.
That means engineering, contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, each waiting on the one below them, each relying on a supply chain that is nothing like the robust, on-time machine people imagine in Germany or Norway or the West.
Now layer the desert summer heat on top of that (we are still in September where the desert heat burns your feet even with shoes), and this is where the delays compound. If you are not short on supplies, your truck is stuck in the sand. If the truck moves, you are waiting on water, or waiting for the temperature to drop, because September in the Saudi desert is so brutal that crews can only work at night or in short bursts before exhaustion and medical emergencies set in.
The skilled labor is largely foreign, Pakistani, Afghan, Indian and others, working under experienced engineers who must be flown in and coordinated and some of those highly skilled workers likely left when the missiles started months ago. So how do you convince them to come back? Sure you have some of your own engineers but the highly skilled ones are always brought in from overseas. And the rhythm of the day is cultural.
There are the Prayer times that take thirty to forty five minutes each, several times a day, if they end up working during the day. There is a midday rest or naps. These are not flaws, they are how the society works, but they are real hours that Western timelines never account for. Then the piece almost no one has factored in.
The ports are blocked via Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al Mandeeb. The heavy equipment a rebuild like this needs, the kind that normally arrives by sea ordered from overseas, cannot come by sea now. It has to be airlifted, which is far more expensive, far slower, and limited by what fits on an aircraft.
Some of this machinery is too large to fly intact, so it must be disassembled, flown in pieces, and reassembled on site. Every one of those steps is a new bottleneck stacked on the last. I like to look at things from an order of effects point of view so;
1. FIRST, the immediate one, the repair itself drags out to weeks or months, not days, so Saudi export capacity stays crippled far longer than the market expects.
2. Second, the market one, that prolonged outage keeps upward pressure on oil and shipping costs, because the bypass everyone assumed would reopen quickly does not.
3. Third, the strategic one, and this is the part the optimists miss, even a fully repaired pipeline sits under the same threat that broke it. Why would the Houthis not simply hit it again, you bet they will.
They have shown they are less about careful calculation than the IRGC and more about action. A rebuilt station is just a fresh target, which means the real constraint is NOT the repair time at all, perhaps it never was. It is that you cannot durably fix a node your enemy can strike at will at any time of day regardless of the weather conditions…. So ignore the days talk.
Between the engineering, the desert, the blocked ports and the standing threat of another strike, this is a one-to-three month problem at best, and po
ssibly one that cannot be permanently solved while the war continues at all. You know what to do, amplify this Signal.
๐ฆ๐๐๐ก๐๐, ๐ก๐ข๐ง ๐ก๐ข๐๐ฆ๐!!