The U.S. Energy Minister, Chris Wright, has just said that Saudi Arabia’s strategic east-to-west oil pipeline will resume operations within the next few days with U.S. support. The pipeline had previously been forced to shut down following a drone attack by Iran-aligned forces, which required Saudi Arabia to reroute and ramp up exports through the Hormuz Strait bottleneck point to make up for the lost supply.

The reassuring move by U.S. officials is facing significant skepticism from energy analysts. While the U.S. gives a timeline of a few days, publicly available satellite imagery shows a pumping station that has been severely damaged, and experts such as Lipow Oil Associates say repairs could take several months. According to Kpler, if the pipeline remains closed for a month, the market could face an oil supply shortfall of about 12 million barrels, directly threatening the global energy supply chain.

This disruption has put financial markets on high alert. The risk of a prolonged crude oil supply disruption would push energy costs higher, thereby reigniting global inflationary pressure, making it harder for central banks to ease monetary policy early and providing momentum for an increase in the U.S. dollar as well as bond yields.

For the crypto market, pressure from oil prices and persistent inflation will limit new capital inflows into riskier assets such as $BTC .