Construction of the East-West pipeline, completed in 1981, was hastened by the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war the year before. Today, with the Strait of Hormuz choked off, the various pipelines criss-crossing the region are of vital importance. On August 4, Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s oil colossus, noted that “strategic infrastructure”, including the East-West pipeline, had cushioned the blow from the Iran war. An Iraqi pipeline through Saudi Arabia, for example, was shut off in 1990 during the first Gulf war. Aramco then began using tankers to take oil arriving from the country’s east and carry it up the Red Sea, to the Sumed pipeline.