An employee of Basra Oil Company, works at the Nahr Bin Umar Oil and Gas Field on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Basra on April 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Hussein Faleh | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Iraq and the United Arab Emirates are fast-tracking plans to expand oil pipelines to replace the capacity lost by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as new data reveals their stark dependency on the Persian Gulf.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, the Iraqi cabinet approved plans to accelerate crude exports through the Kurdistan-Turkey pipeline network, which would more than triple its existing shipments from 220,000 barrels per day to 770,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The route offers an alternative passage through Kurdistan to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. When operating at full capacity, it should provide relief to the oil-dependent Iraqi economy, which contributed 53% to its real GDP in 2025, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n
Exclusive data shown to CNBC by economic intelligence provider QuantCube Technology reveals that Iraq’s overall exports have virtually dried up since the war began, as a result of its geographical dependence on Hormuz. <\/p>\n
QuantCube’s indicator measures the volume of deadweight tonnage leaving Iraqi and UAE ports, which provides an estimate of the cargo weight the ships are carrying.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Iraq is in a much more complicated situation because we know that most, if not all of its oil, transits through Hormuz,” Alan Lemangnen, senior economist at QuantCube, told CNBC in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iraq announced in a press conference on May 16 that it had exported 10 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in April, down from 93 million barrels before the war.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi is fast-tracking construction<\/a> of the new West-East pipeline to Fujairah as it also looks to expand its oil export capacity and bypass the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint.<\/p>\n The project, expected to come online in 2027, will double the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) export capacity.<\/p>\n Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on May 15 called for faster delivery of the pipeline to meet rising global energy demand.<\/p>\n The UAE can still export oil through other terminals, easing the impact of the Hormuz closure.<\/p>\n “It’s clear that Iraq, because of its location and its inability to reroute, is in a much more complicated situation than the UAE or KSA,” Lemangnen added.<\/p>\n “The UAE still has the Fujairah terminal. Even if it has been damaged during the war, it still, in theory, has the infrastructure and vessels to export a large amount of oil.”\u00a0<\/p>\n But even existing alternatives are at risk. Saudi’s East-West pipeline was attacked by Iran<\/a> in April, while Fujairah has also come under attack from Iranian drones, disrupting oil loading operations at its crude export terminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n The East-West pipeline, linking processing facilities near the Persian Gulf to an export hub on the Red Sea, and the UAE pipeline to the port of Fujairah, have a combined estimated 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels per day (mb\/d) of available capacity, the IEA notes, although Saudi Arabia said in March its pipeline is pumping 7 mb\/d.<\/p>\n But flows remain well short of the roughly 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products that transited through the Strait of Hormuz every day before the war.<\/p>\n Developing alternative export routes involves not only massive investment in infrastructure, but also time. Often transnational agreements are necessary if pipelines pass through several territories.<\/p>\n