Ship traffic in Bab el-Mandeb Strait down by 56% following Houthi embargo — newspaper

Lead

Commercial ship traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital maritime corridor separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, fell by 56% in the week after Yemen's Houthi rebels announced an embargo on vessels linked to Saudi Arabia, as reported by the newspaper The National. The decline comes amid escalating hostilities and heightened fears of renewed full-scale conflict in the region.

Coverage comparison

Two reports from TASS, both dated July 21 and July 28, respectively, cite The National as the source for updated data on shipping and oil flows. The more recent report details the sharp drop in ship transits, while the earlier one focuses on the fall in Saudi oil shipments. Both rely on data from analytics firm Kpler for oil flow figures, and The National is named as the origin of the ship-count figures.

Key claims

According to The National, on July 26, only 15 bulk cargo ships passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, compared with 34 on July 20, the day the embargo was announced. Nine of the ships were leaving the Red Sea and six were entering it, carrying oil, grain, and fertilizer to destinations including China, India, Pakistan, and the Netherlands.

The decline in traffic followed Houthi statements about attacks on facilities belonging to Saudi oil and gas company Saudi Aramco in the port cities of Jizan and Yanbu on July 25, which heightened fears of renewed hostilities, The National noted.

The earlier report, also citing The National and Kpler data, said Saudi Arabia's oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait fell by 36% over the past two weeks. Volumes of oil shipments to Saudi ports on the Red Sea dropped to 6.1 million barrels per day from a peak of 9.5 million barrels per day on June 29. Around 70% of Saudi oil is being rerouted to the port of Yanbu al-Bahr in the west of the country, according to the newspaper.

The route via the Bab el-Mandeb has become vital for Riyadh since the onset of the conflict between Washington and Tehran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, The National said. About 12% of global trade passes through the strait, and its closure would jeopardize roughly a quarter of global oil and gas supplies.

On July 20, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saria announced a ban on maritime shipping to and from Saudi Arabia. The next day, the Saudi-led Arab coalition said it was beginning to implement measures to protect merchant ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

At the same time, ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz nearly doubled on July 26, according to The National, amid a lull in hostilities between the US and Iran following two weeks of mutual strikes. Analysts cited by the newspaper counted 11 ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz on July 26, six on July 25, and 12 on July 24. Many vessels turned off their tracking systems and took unusual routes to avoid detection.