The United States has spent the shale era enjoying a luxury Europe does not possess: abundant energy resources of its own. The European Union remains heavily dependent on imports, even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced it to diversify suppliers and rethink the strategic cost of energy dependence. If Europe wants reliable access to Gulf oil without leaving every shipment exposed to the Strait of Hormuz, it should consider helping Gulf states finance and operate a pipeline linking the region’s oil fields directly to the Mediterranean.

The idea is formidable, but it is not fantastical. A large-scale, fully buried pipeline system from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean would probably cost between $40 billion and $60 billion and take five to seven years to complete. The final price and timetable would depend on the route, the number of transit states, the political agreements binding them together, and the volume of oil the system was designed to carry. At a proposed capacity of roughly 2 million barrels a day, the project would rank among the world’s most consequential pieces of energy infrastructure.

Construction and trenching alone could cost $18 billion to $25 billion. Burying several 42- to 48-inch pipelines across deserts, fault zones, and mountain ranges would require extensive excavation, rock blasting, and specialized anti-corrosion coatings. Large overland pipelines already cost millions of dollars per mile; requiring full underground burial would drive labor, material, and machinery costs considerably higher.

The pipeline would also need a chain of heavily protected pumping stations, storage depots, and loading facilities, adding an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion. Moving millions of barrels of crude across such distances would require pumping stations at intervals of roughly 60 to 100 miles, as well as vast terminals on the Mediterranean coast. Another $7 billion to $10 billion would likely be needed as a geopolitical and geotechnical contingency against construction delays, material inflation, difficult terrain, and the legal complications of securing rights of way across several countries.

Security could add a further $5 billion to $10 billion. Any cross-border energy corridor in the Middle East would be vulnerable to sabotage, drone attacks, missile strikes, and political coercion. Protecting it would require hardened facilities, persistent aerial and satellite surveillance, automated detection systems, and, in the most exposed areas, air-defense capabilities. The pipeline would be buried, but much of the infrastructure that keeps it operating would remain above ground.

Nor could the project be rushed simply by spending more money. The first two years would probably be consumed by diplomacy, transit treaties, environmental studies, and right-of-way agreements. Manufacturing and transporting millions of tons of high-grade steel pipe and industrial pumping equipment would begin during that period and extend into the third year. The heaviest construction would likely take place from years three through six, with several crews working simultaneously in different geographic zones. A single construction spread might lay only one or two miles of pipe a day. Hydrostatic pressure testing, line filling, safety certification, and the gradual start of commercial operations could occupy much of a seventh year.

Two broad routes are plausible. A Mesopotamian corridor could run approximately 1,500 kilometers from the oil fields around Basra through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean port of Baniyas. It would be relatively direct, but its exposure to instability in Iraq and Syria would make financing and insuring it exceptionally difficult. An alternative could build on existing infrastructure, including Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-kilometer East-West Petroline to the Red Sea, before extending a new network northward toward Mediterranean terminals. A southern alignment through Jordan and Israel might be commercially attractive, but it would demand political arrangements that do not yet exist.

The landscape presents a challenge almost as great as the diplomacy. A route from the Gulf fields, whether from Ghawar in Saudi Arabia or Basra in Iraq, would cross the Syrian Desert and then encounter a series of rugged and geologically active barriers near the Mediterranean. The Jordan Rift Valley and Dead Sea Fault combine extreme changes in elevation with significant seismic risk. Depending on the terminal, the pipeline might then have to negotiate the limestone ridges of the Judean Hills or the Golan Heights, which rise to between 3,000 and 4,000 feet. A more northerly route through Syria or Lebanon would confront the Anti-Lebanon and Mount Lebanon ranges, where peaks approach 9,000 to 10,000 feet and winter conditions can be severe.

Engineers would not need to carve passenger-sized tunnels through every obstacle. Where open trenching is impossible or environmentally unacceptable, crews can use micro-tunnel boring machines or horizontal directional drilling. These systems excavate a passage only slightly larger than the pipeline itself, dramatically reducing the amount of rock and soil that must be removed. In some settings, hydraulic rams can push sections of pipe behind the drilling head as it advances. Grout can then stabilize the surrounding space, avoiding the large open voids associated with conventional tunnels and reducing the risk that leaked gas could accumulate underground.

Engineering, however, may be the easier part. Cross-border pipelines depend on a dense architecture of intergovernmental agreements and host-government contracts. Each transit country would have to define tariffs, taxation, construction standards, environmental obligations, security responsibilities, and procedures for resolving disputes. Jordan, Syria, or any other state that hosts the pipeline without producing the oil would expect a fee for every barrel crossing its territory. Those payments could produce hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, giving governments a powerful incentive to participate.

The agreements would also need credible guarantees against seizure or politically motivated shutdowns. The original Trans-Arabian Pipeline, or Tapline, offers a cautionary precedent. Once celebrated as a feat of regional integration, it was repeatedly disrupted by war, sabotage, border disputes, and arguments over transit fees before its operations eventually ceased. A new corridor would require stronger legal protections, durable arbitration mechanisms, and financial penalties substantial enough to discourage governments from treating the pipeline as a bargaining chip whenever relations deteriorate.

A southern route ending at Ashkelon or Haifa would depend on an even more ambitious political settlement. Saudi Arabia and Israel would need formal economic arrangements robust enough to survive changes of government and renewed regional conflict. The Abraham Accords could provide part of the diplomatic framework, but they would have to be broadened and reinforced. At the same time, a pipeline stretching across several states would require a joint security command capable of sharing intelligence, coordinating patrols, and responding quickly to attacks. Without that cooperation, the corridor could become a succession of national vulnerabilities rather than a single protected system.

Environmental safeguards would be equally important, particularly in the Jordan Valley and the surrounding highlands. The Mountain Aquifer and other freshwater reserves supply millions of people in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan. A major oil leak into porous limestone could contaminate water that is both scarce and, on any meaningful human timescale, irreplaceable.

In the most sensitive areas, the crude line could be enclosed within a larger steel casing, creating a double-containment, pipe-in-pipe system. Sensors in the space between the pipes could monitor pressure continuously and detect a leak before oil reached the surrounding soil. Fiber-optic cables buried beside the line could identify subtle acoustic vibrations and temperature changes associated with even a small breach, allowing operators to locate it within minutes. Automated isolation valves could divide the pipeline into short segments. Whereas valves might be spaced roughly 20 miles apart across open desert, they could be installed every one or two miles near aquifers or steep mountain descents, limiting the volume released after a rupture.

For transit countries, the economic returns could be substantial. If a pipeline carried 2 million barrels a day and the average tariff were 90 cents a barrel, it would generate approximately $1.8 million in transit revenue each day, or $657 million a year. The actual division of those proceeds would depend on the length of the route through each country and the terms of the agreements, but even a share of that sum could matter greatly to a country such as Jordan. It could help finance public infrastructure, healthcare, or water projects without imposing new taxes.

Payment would not necessarily have to come entirely in cash. Transit states could negotiate the right to take part of their fees in crude oil, securing supplies for domestic refineries and reducing their exposure to volatile import prices. Hosting the pipeline would also turn non-producing countries into important links in the global energy market. That leverage could strengthen their hand in trade and security negotiations, although it might also tempt governments to threaten the corridor during political disputes—the very danger the treaties would be designed to contain.

For Europe and Gulf producers, the largest strategic advantage would be a partial escape from the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most sensitive maritime oil chokepoint. During periods of heightened tension, marine insurers can designate the Persian Gulf a high-risk area and sharply raise war-risk premiums. Rates that might ordinarily amount to a few hundredths of a percent of a vessel’s value can climb to a quarter or even half a percent per voyage. On a $100 million very large crude carrier, that could mean an additional $250,000 to $500,000 for a single trip, before accounting for higher freight rates, security costs, or delays.

An underground line to the Mediterranean would allow tankers to load at ports such as Ashkelon, Haifa, or Baniyas without entering the Gulf. It would also shorten the journey to European and North American refineries by thousands of miles compared with sailing around Africa, while reducing reliance on the Suez Canal. The savings would fluctuate with insurance rates, freight markets, and oil prices, but the strategic value is easier to see: a regional crisis could disrupt the pipeline, yet it would no longer be able to trap an entire export system behind one narrow waterway.

The Mediterranean terminal would, of course, become a high-value target in its own right. A facility handling as much as 2 million barrels a day would need layered defenses on land, in the air, and offshore. Underwater barriers and sensor networks could help protect loading buoys and piers against unmanned vessels and explosive devices. Close-in weapon systems and surface-to-air missile batteries could defend against drones, rockets, and anti-ship missiles. Naval patrols, sonar-equipped vessels, and aerial reconnaissance could enforce an exclusion zone around the terminal and screen approaching ships. Such defenses would be expensive, but leaving a strategic terminal exposed would be more expensive still.

Europe should not mistake a new oil pipeline for a permanent substitute for the clean-energy transition. Nor would a Gulf-to-Mediterranean corridor make the continent entirely independent of the United States, Russia, or maritime trade. It would instead provide something Europe badly needs: another route, another set of suppliers, and greater room to maneuver when alliances fray or chokepoints close.

As political tensions between Washington and Brussels rise and confidence in U.S. foreign policy weakens, Europe has reason to reduce the strategic risks built into its energy system. A Gulf-to-Mediterranean pipeline is technically possible and, at sufficient scale, potentially economical. What it lacks is not an engineering solution but a political coalition capable of financing it, protecting it, and keeping it open. The European Union has the money, regulatory influence, and diplomatic weight to help assemble that coalition. It should begin testing whether the governments along the route have the will to join it.