SUMED pipeline
The Ain Sokhna to Sidi Kerir crude pipeline that lets deep-draft tankers bypass the Suez Canal draft limit.
The SUMED pipeline, the Suez to Mediterranean crude line, runs from Ain Sokhna on the Gulf of Suez to Sidi Kerir near Alexandria on the Mediterranean. It exists because the Suez Canal draft limit excludes the largest laden crude tankers, so a VLCC can discharge part or all of its cargo at the southern end, transit lighter or not at all, and reload at the northern end.
That makes the pipeline and the canal a single system for crude rather than two competing routes, which is why oil-flow statistics for the corridor are usually published as a combined Suez and SUMED figure rather than for the canal alone.
The full article will cover the ownership and capacity of the line, the lightering arrangement at each end, the economics of a partial discharge against a Cape routing, and how combined corridor flows are measured and reported.