Bab al-Mandeb

A single radio broadcast on 20 July achieved what missile strikes had not yet forced: six vessels bound for the strait, including a Chinese VLCC, reversed course inside 48 hours with no shot fired. Strikes on the tankers Encelia and Layla followed two days later, then the NCC Masa on 24 July.

A Windward maritime-risk assessment published 30 July, the most recent read available, put total crossings down 22% since the blockade declaration, from about 47.8 vessels a day to 37.2. Tanker transits fell 39%, and Saudi-linked tanker transits fell 46% to roughly 7.5 a day, a drop the assessment ties to war-risk cover being withdrawn from 24 July. That figure rests on one commercial assessment rather than an insurer or Lloyd's-market confirmation.

Saudi Arabia has loaded no crude through Bab al-Mandeb since the Houthi blockade declaration on 23 July, forcing a total switch rather than a gradual shift because Red Sea crude has only two exits, north or south. Suez Canal crude traffic jumped 106% in a week to 1.06 million barrels a day as shippers diverted north instead.

Yanbu, the Red Sea terminal that fed the strait, was still handling 92% of Saudi Arabia's seaborne crude exports in June, some 3.75 million barrels a day; none of that volume has passed through Bab al-Mandeb since the blockade took hold, the clearest sign the closure is total rather than partial. A route that once meant a single 24-day run through the strait no longer exists at all, and the main freight benchmark has yet to register a chokepoint carrying nothing.