18JUN

Seven ships veer clear of the strait

1 min read

09:57UTC

Seven vessels have diverted away from the Bab al-Mandab since the tanker strikes, according to ship-tracking data, closing the southern reroute in practice.

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EconomicDeveloping

Key takeaway

With ships avoiding both straits, Gulf-to-Europe crude faces the long route round the Cape and a wider insurance exclusion.

Seven vessels have diverted away from the Bab al-Mandab since the 22 July tanker strikes, according to ship-tracking data ¹. the strait, the southern passage past Yemen through which Gulf oil reaches the Suez Canal, had absorbed traffic pushed off the Hormuz route as the northern chokepoint tightened.

The diversions turn a single attack into a routing problem for every owner weighing the southern passage. Hormuz weekly transits had already fallen 66% before this ; avoiding the Bab al-Mandab as well leaves the long haul around the Cape of Good Hope as the remaining way from the Gulf to Europe, adding roughly ten days and the fuel bill to match. War-risk underwriters, who have held a Hormuz exclusion for weeks, now have a fresh southern-strait case on which to widen it.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Ship-tracking data shows seven vessels have chosen to avoid the Bab al-Mandab strait entirely since the tanker strikes began, sailing the long way round Africa instead. It is a small number so far, but it shows some shipping companies have decided the risk of sailing through the strait is no longer worth it, whatever the extra cost of the longer route.

Sources:Al Jazeera·Axios

Mentions:Bab al-Mandeb →Houthis →Cape of Good Hope →Yemen →

First Reported In

Update #160 · Houthis hit Saudi tankers; Brent tops $100

Al Jazeera· 23 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Houthis fire on the Saudi tanker Encelia

The tanker strikes prompted seven vessels to divert away from the Bab al-Mandab.

Occurred 21 Jul 2026

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This Event

Seven ships veer clear of the strait

Rerouting away from the Bab al-Mandab as well as Hormuz leaves the long haul round the Cape as the remaining option and widens the war-risk exclusion.

Led to

Riyadh founds a 43-nation naval bloc

The Houthi Bab al-Mandeb embargo (ID:5218) is among the injuries the new Saudi-led naval coalition answers.

Occurred 30 Jul 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Cross-border power traders

The France-Germany day-ahead spread flipped from a EUR 17.20 German premium on 1 August to a EUR 4.15 French premium on 3 August, the same day French curtailment peaked. They cannot yet attribute the flip to curtailment alone, since a like-for-like overnight comparison shows French nuclear output rising while wind fell and demand returned on the weekday step.

EDF

River-cooling limits took 7.6 GW, 12 per cent of its fleet, offline on 3 August, the highest curtailment since the heatwave began, with an easing forecast to 4.3 GW on 4 August and 3 GW after. It manages the cut as a recurring seasonal constraint, expecting it to lift with river temperature, not repair.

Gasunie

TTF, the Dutch hub it operates, drifted to roughly EUR 55 to 58 per MWh across the window, staying inside its recent range through both the German spark reversal and the French curtailment. It reads a flat hub price as evidence that neither event this window carried enough weight to move the fuel leg on its own.

German gas-fired generators

Record German solar of 18,761 MW on 2 August pushed the clean spark spread to minus 18.48 EUR/MWh, a loss-making day, before it returned to plus 16.20 on 3 August. They now price dispatch against post-solar residual load rather than wind alone, since the sign flipped inside 48 hours on unchanged fuel and carbon costs.

European Commission (DG Energy)

Its implementing-measures register logged transposition notices from only Portugal and Slovakia against Wednesday's Article 94 deadline for Directive (EU) 2024/1788, with 25 states silent. It expects the register to fill only gradually, since filing routinely lags legislating and any infringement track against non-notifying states runs on a slower clock than the deadline itself.

Spain's LNG terminal operators

Spain's 9,145 GWh terminal inventory is the largest single stock in the EU LNG network, an option value that can reroute cargoes wherever the winter strip pays best rather than a cavern gas obligation tied to a fixed date. That flexibility matters more as Germany's cavern shortfall pushes more of the winter security question onto import infrastructure.