Twenty million barrels of oil a day moved through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, close to a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude trade, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates. When that flow dropped sharply during the 2026 disruption, the region’s response arrived first on rail, not on new pipeline capacity.
Rail cannot replace the enormous volumes of crude and LNG moving through Hormuz, but it can become part of a wider network designed to keep goods, industrial inputs and energy-related cargo moving when maritime routes are disrupted.
For crude oil, pipelines remain the most credible alternative. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline provides a route to the Red Sea, while the UAE’s Abu Dhabi-Fujairah pipeline allows crude to reach a terminal outside the Strait. The IEA estimates that Saudi Arabia and the UAE together have several million barrels per day of potential bypass capacity.
Rail serves a different purpose. Its strategic value is its ability to connect alternative ports with inland markets and neighbouring countries, allowing freight to be redistributed across land corridors rather than remaining dependent on Gulf maritime routes.
Saudi Arabia is already demonstrating how existing rail infrastructure can support this approach. Saudi Arabia Railways has launched a freight corridor connecting the Kingdom’s eastern ports, including Dammam and Jubail, with Al Haditha on the Jordanian border. The route provides a northbound land connection from the Gulf toward Jordan and potentially onward markets.
It does not bypass Hormuz for crude oil in the way a pipeline does. Instead, it creates another route for containers, industrial goods, mining products and other cargo that would otherwise depend on maritime distribution.
Gulf rail projects gain strategic relevance
The long-planned GCC Railway could further strengthen this network. Designed to connect Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, the approximately 2,117-kilometer system would link major industrial centers, logistics hubs and ports across the Gulf.
GCC governments are also working on customs integration, digital systems and cross-border procedures. These elements are critical because infrastructure alone does not create a functioning international freight corridor. The UAE provides another important example. Etihad Rail’s national network connects major industrial and logistics centers and is designed to link ports on both the Gulf and Gulf of Oman sides of the country.
The proposed Bonded Rail Corridor connecting Khalifa Port with Fujairah is particularly significant from a resilience perspective. Fujairah lies outside the Strait of Hormuz, while the UAE already has an oil pipeline connecting Abu Dhabi’s production infrastructure with Fujairah.
A rail connection between the two gateways would complement existing energy infrastructure by allowing other categories of cargo to move between alternative maritime access points.
Jordan could become a northern gateway
North of the Gulf, the UAE and Jordan are jointly developing a 360-kilometer railway connecting the port of Aqaba to the Al Shidiya and Ghor es-Safi mining areas, an investment reported at $2.3 billion. Aqaba’s throughput has already increased as cargo has been redirected toward it during the Hormuz disruption, giving the port an expanded role ahead of the rail line’s completion.
A further connection through Syria and Türkiye, discussed between Riyadh and Istanbul as a potential route linking the Gulf to European markets, remains at an early conceptual stage. Riyadh and Amman are described as only beginning to formalize the idea of a through-connection, with the specific route still unsettled, a materially earlier stage of development than the operational corridors already moving freight in the Eastern Province and the UAE.
Rail is an asset, not a replacement
The fundamental limitation is capacity. A railway cannot replicate the volume of energy transported through Hormuz. Moreover, using rail to move large quantities of crude would generally be less efficient than pipelines or tankers.
A strong Gulf logistics system would combine pipelines for high-volume crude flows, alternative ports for maritime access, rail and roads for inland distribution, and storage and digital customs systems to provide additional flexibility. The Hormuz crisis therefore changes the question for rail. The issue is not whether rail can replace the Strait, but whether it can reduce the consequences of losing it.