Iran’s greatest leverage seems to be control of the Strait of Hormuz. They’ve destroyed lots of infrastructure, but they haven’t damaged the 2 pipelines that are designed to transport oil around the strait (the East-West pipeline and the Abu Dhabi pipeline). If those pipelines were damaged, it seems it would make their control of the strait even more strategic. Yet they haven’t done this.
The pipelines seem like easy targets. They’re long and damaging them at any point would take down the entire pipeline. As a result, they seem hard to protect.
I assume the pipelines haven’t been targeted for a reason, but it’s not apparent, to me at least.
https://www.iea.org/about/oil-security-and-emergency-response/strait-of-hormuz
Why hasn’t Iran targeted the pipelines?
byu/SurinamPam inenergy
Posted by SurinamPam
6 Comments
If you’re talking about the pipes in the UAE which can bypass the Strait. Iran has attacked the Fujairah port which connects to those pipes
If Trump goes through with his threat to bomb up Iranian powerplants, then that is very likely what will happen. If Iran is put in a position where they have nothing left to lose, then they will have no reason to keep restraining themselves at that point.
The House of Saud already loathes the regime in Tehran, hitting the East-West pipeline would have the Saudis GLADLY backing the U.S. and Israel against Iran AND all of their proxies.
They probably didn’t destroy the pipelines precisely for moments like this. You don’t wanna blow your whole load and have nothing in the tank. Now, when Trump threatens their power plants… They can up the ante by going after those pipelines that you speak of.
Believe it or not they are using measured responses to US and Israel bombing. Notice they didn’t hit NPG till Israel did it first.
They need to retain a few cards to dissuade Trump and Netanyahu from actually doing something like taking out their power plants.