Emergency Flaring Detected Along Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline
Emergency Flaring Detected Along Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline
PAYNE INSTITUTE COMMENTARY SERIES: COMMENTARY
September 11, 2026
On the evening of September 10, 2026, Marhelm reported that unnamed diplomatic channels were describing “catastrophic damage” to Saudi Arabia’s East–West crude pipeline, later specifying “at least 8 places” and citing prior accuracy on Fujairah, Abqaiq and tanker incidents [1]. Those claims were combined with @HormuzLetter’s earlier Sentinel-3 imagery of a ~100 km smoke plume southeast of Medina and NASA FIRMS detections (clustered anomalies, FRP >70 MW, multi-hour burn) [2]. @HormuzLetter then posted the widely copied “BREAKING … 8 locations … diplomatic channels” wording [2]. Market notes treated the story as unverified; Aramco and the Energy Ministry had not confirmed a multi-point rupture [3],[4].
We compared the pipeline route with NASA FIRMS thermal anomalies and near-real-time VIIRS Nightfire (VNF) observations from the Suomi NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites (Figure 1). VNF uses multispectral infrared observations and Planck-curve fitting to retrieve the temperature, source area, and radiant heat of subpixel combustion sources [5]. We associated the new detections with known flare locations from the MYC25 multiyear catalog [6], constructed two-month operating histories for every flare in the affected corridor, and converted the observed radiant heat to instantaneous gas-flow rates using the John Zink calibration developed from controlled flare experiments in Tulsa, Oklahoma [7].
Figure 1. Satellite observations of the reported fire along Saudi Arabia’s East–West crude-oil pipeline on September 10, 2026. The cyan line shows the pipeline route; VNF columns represent retrieved radiant heat, colored by combustion temperature; magenta circles show NASA FIRMS anomalies scaled by fire radiative power; green polygons and yellow markers identify MYC25Q4 flare-association areas and known flare centroids; and the red marker indicates the reported fire location. The spatial correspondence shows that the detected thermal activity occurred primarily at previously cataloged flare sites rather than at new locations along the pipeline (animated version at https://eogdata.mines.edu/wwwdata/public/Saudi%20East-West%20pipeline%20fire_VNF_FIRMS_MYC25Q4.html).
The observations do not indicate new fires at unusual or previously uncatalogued locations. Instead, at least two known flares along the pipeline entered an apparent “emergency” operating regime, with exceptionally sharp increases in flow rate (Figure 2). The strongest observation approached 0.4 billion cubic meters per year, comparable in magnitude to the largest controlled flare used in the Tulsa calibration experiments. VNF-retrieved combustion temperatures remained within the sites’ previous ranges, indicating that the fuel being burned did not materially change; the principal change was the volume of gas directed to the flares. NASA FIRMS [8] also detected the increase in thermal activity and therefore provided valuable independent confirmation. However, because FIRMS is less sensitive than VNF to nighttime flares and does not retrieve combustion temperature, it could not describe the event in the same operational detail.
Figure 2. Two-month near-real-time VIIRS Nightfire history for MYC25Q4 flare site s_8831, near the reported pipeline fire at 23.95909°N, 40.05338°E. The panels show M10 radiance, VNF-retrieved combustion temperature, and instantaneous gas-flow rate estimated using the John Zink calibration. Blue and red markers denote clear and cloudy overpasses, respectively. On September 11, 2026, the estimated flow rate increased abruptly to approximately 0.32–0.44 BCM/year, while combustion temperatures remained within the site’s previously observed range. This indicates a major increase in the volume of gas being burned without evidence of a material change in fuel composition.
REFERENCES
[1] Marhelm [@MarhelmData]. (2026, September 10). Diplomatic channels reporting the Saudi East-West pipeline has suffered catastrophic damage in multiple locations [Post]. X. https://x.com/MarhelmData/status/2098176806465540297
Marhelm [@MarhelmData]. (2026, September 10). What we’ve been told is that the pipeline has been damaged in at least 8 places [Post]. X. https://x.com/MarhelmData/status/2098186974037262602
[2] The Hormuz Letter [@HormuzLetter]. (2026, September 10). Yemen’s Houthis might have directly struck Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pipeline… Sentinel-3… NASA FIRMS [Post]. X. https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2098152930348278000
The Hormuz Letter [@HormuzLetter]. (2026, September 11). BREAKING: Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pipeline has suffered catastrophic damage in at least 8 locations… [Post]. X. https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2098219624252813501
[3] InvestingLive. (2026, September 10). Unverified satellite data fuels talk of fresh hit on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. https://investinglive.com/commodities/unverified-satellite-data-fuels-talk-of-fresh-hit-on-saudi-arabia-s-east-west-pipeline/
[4] Alegre, J. (2026, September 10–11). Rumors say Saudi crude is offline—here’s what’s confirmed so far. The Deep Dive. https://thedeepdive.ca/rumors-say-saudi-crude-is-offline-heres-whats-confirmed-so-far/
[5] Elvidge, C. D., Zhizhin, M., Hsu, F.-C., and Baugh, K. E. “VIIRS Nightfire: Satellite Pyrometry at Night.” Remote Sensing 5, no. 9 (2013): 4423–4449. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5094423.
[6] Zhizhin, M., Elvidge, C. D., Ghosh, T., Gleason, G., and Bazilian, M. “VIIRS Nightfire Super-Resolution Method for Multiyear Cataloging of Natural Gas Flaring Sites: 2012–2025.” Remote Sensing 18, no. 2 (2026): 314. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18020314.
[7] Zhizhin, M., Elvidge, C. D., Sparks, T., Ghosh, T., Bazilian, M., and Hsu, F.-C. “An Improved Calibration for Satellite Estimation of Flared Gas Volumes from VIIRS Nighttime Data.” Energies 18, no. 17 (2025): 4765. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18174765.
[8] NASA. “Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).” Accessed September 11, 2026. https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mikhail Zhizhin
Research Associate, Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines
Mikhail Zhizhin, M.Science in mathematics from the Moscow State University in 1984, Ph.D. in computational seismology and pattern recognition from the Russian Acad. Sci. in 1992. Research positions from 1987 to 2012 in geophysics, space research and nuclear physics at Russian Acad. Sci., later at NOAA and CU Boulder. Currently he is a researcher at the Earth Observation Group at Colorado School of Mines. His applied research fields evolved from high performance computing in seismology, geodynamics, terrestrial and space weather to deep learning in remote sensing. He is developing new machine learning algorithms to better understand the Nature with Big Data.
Morgan Bazilian
Director, Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines
Morgan Bazilian is the Director of the Payne Institute and a Professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines. Previously, he wD.as lead energy specialist at the World Bank. He has over two decades of experience in the energy sector and is regarded as a leading expert in international affairs, policy and investment. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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