Houthis Take Perim as Saudis Halt Pipeline 2026

Yahya Saree told shipowners the Red Sea was open, except to Saudi flags. Kpler's Asia series was already at 128,000 barrels a day in August, down from 3.4 million in June. On Sept. 10, NASA's VIIRS instrument recorded a dark plume and a line of heat along Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline. Two days later the same satellite family showed Perim sitting in the middle of Bab el-Mandeb. Reuters confirmed the precautionary shutdown.

Those are three different facts. The article keeps them that way.

Key findings

• NASA VIIRS, 10 Sep 2026: a linear smoke plume and discrete thermal pixels on the Petroline corridor southeast of Medina. Inspected this session.
• CNN, citing two U.S. officials: pump stations at Al Mesba'ah and Al Dhekra were hit. At least six of nine large fires lined up with flare pits.
• Saudi Energy Ministry stopped the line as a precaution after multiple attacks in the Riyadh and Medina regions. People were injured. No barrel-by-barrel Aramco damage figure.
• Houthis took Mokha, Dhubab, Perim (Mayun) and, per AFP, the Hanish islands. Saree did not claim the pumps. Riyadh and Baghdad said those drones came from Iraq.
• IEA via Reuters: Saudi crude supply in August was 6.0 million b/d, a 30-year low. Kpler: Saudi crude to Asia fell from 3.4 million b/d in June to 128,000 in August, before Perim fell.

What the open satellites show

NASA GIBS / VIIRS SNPP, 10 Sep 2026. Inspected this session. Gold-bar crop is the hero and OG image.

The plume

The smoke is darker and more linear than the cloud field next to it. Red thermal pixels sit on the axis. This is the public-sensor match for Sentinel-3 accounts of a long black streak toward Mahd adh Dhahab. A thermal-only frame the same day shows a string of heat points, not one fire. CNN counted nine large fires and said at least six lined up with flare pits. This sensor cannot tell a flare from a strike.

Planet Labs stills of Al Mesba'ah (11 Sep: tanks standing in a black burn scar versus an Airbus 15 Feb baseline) and Al Dhekra (10 Sep: fire and smoke) ran at CNN, the Hill, and AFP. Those pixels are licensed. They are not reproduced here.

The island

NASA GIBS / VIIRS SNPP, 12 Sep 2026. The picture proves geography. It does not prove who occupies Perim.

A Saudi-backed officer told AFP, "Everything that was under our control on the western coast has fallen." About 46,000 people were newly displaced.

Refusal column

Three flags, not one blockade

This sits next to earlier Board work on the Hormuz math and the U.S.-Iran naval stalemate. The new fact is the second door.

No sentence here makes Houthis the subject of the pump fire. Trump, from a golf course in Ireland, said Iran was "probably" behind the pipeline attack and offered no evidence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi fired the Maysan operations commander and opened an investigation. Al Jazeera reported a launch kit seized near al-Tayeb and an Iranian request to sit in on the findings.

Price of the node

Do not hang the June-to-August Asia collapse on Perim. Perim is the lock on what was left. Prescription-drug routes still run through Hormuz. Diesel at the U.S. pump is the household receipt.

IEA no longer expects normal Gulf flows in 2026. Global supply is seen falling 5.7 million b/d this year.

Logistics clock

The East-West line, Petroline, runs about 1,200 kilometers from Abqaiq to Yanbu. Buried pipe is hard to kill. Pumps are not. Saudi Arabia's joint defense talks with Turkey and Pakistan do not reopen a burned station.

No official Aramco barrel-by-barrel damage figure has been released. Capital Economics said a sustained hit, with Perim in Houthi hands, could push Brent toward $120. Brent was already back above $100 after Thursday.

The company that pays for the house

Aramco is 98 percent state-owned. Mohammed bin Salman chairs the Public Investment Fund. The fund's cash is largely the Aramco dividend. First-quarter profit rose on price while volumes fell, and the budget still posted its highest quarterly deficit on record. On Aug. 31 the debt office was sounding banks for at least $8 billion. Vision 2030 assumed barrels would keep leaving Ras Tanura and Yanbu.

April Longley Alley told NPR the squeeze is "existential for Saudi Arabia": Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Iraqi launches from the north, and a five-million-barrel line now shut. Fawaz A. Gerges called Mokha a "game changer" for the Houthis and for Iran.

Saree says other companies' ships can pass. Insurers will price that sentence. For a Saudi flag he has already answered.

What to watch

Outlook, not a forecast: whether Petroline restarts without a named damage figure; whether Kpler's Asia series stays near 128,000 b/d or the 700,000 partial-recovery print holds; whether a second government source names the pump-station shooter; whether Joint War Committee listed areas widen. Falsifier for the squeeze: Yanbu loadings back above 4 million b/d with two confirmed pump stations online.

Sources

• Reuters: Saudis shut East-West pipeline as Houthis tighten Red Sea grip
• Reuters: IEA says Saudi crude supply at a three-decade low
• CNN: pump stations hit, satellite fire damage
• NPR: April Longley Alley on the squeeze
• NASA Worldview / GIBS VIIRS stills, 10-12 Sep 2026
• Al Jazeera: drones from Iraq, pipeline shutdown

Related Analysis

• The Hormuz Math: Why the Strait Can't Be Reopened Fast
• Trump Iran Deal Stalemate and the Naval Blockade
• Your Prescription Drugs Come Through the Strait of Hormuz
• Mecca Joint Defense Agreement: Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan
• Israel-Iran War Simulation