Nairobi, Sept. 14 -- Kenya faces a bleak petroleum supply outlook after an escalated Middle East conflict triggered the shutdown of a key pipeline in Saudi Arabia that had served as an alternative route following blockades on the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has shut its 1,200-kilometre East-West pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, following drone attacks that hit sections of the critical infrastructure in the Riyadh and Medina areas.

The East-West pipeline, which was built during the Iran-Iraq War in the early 1980s, allowed State-owned Saudi Aramco to maintain exports by moving crude from its oilfields in Abqaiq on the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea without relying on Gulf shipping routes.

"The pipeline was shut down as a pre...