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Iran Conflict 2026
3AUG

Bab el-Mandeb thins to 7.5 tankers a day

3 min read
15:23UTC

A Windward assessment dated 30 July put Saudi-linked tanker transits through Bab el-Mandeb down 46% after Lloyd's-market war-risk cover for those hulls lapsed on 24 July. Total crossings are down 22% since the blockade declaration.

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Key takeaway

Insurers, not missiles, cut Saudi-linked Bab el-Mandeb tanker transits to about 7.5 a day from 24 July.

A Windward maritime-risk assessment dated 30 July, republished by Hellenic Shipping News, put total Bab el-Mandeb crossings down 22% since the Houthi blockade declaration of 20 July, from about 47.8 a day to 37.2 1. Tanker transits fell 39% over the same stretch. Saudi-linked tanker transits fell 46%, thinning to roughly 7.5 a day once Lloyd's-market war-risk cover for those hulls lapsed on 24 July 2. Bab el-Mandeb is the strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa linking the Red Sea to The Gulf of Aden, and it carries the short leg from Saudi loading terminals to refineries in Italy, Spain and Greece.

The sequence began with fire and ended with paperwork. The Houthis declared the blockade and struck two tankers on 23 July . Underwriters then pulled cover for Saudi-linked vessels, and the transit count collapsed after that, not before it. Saudi Arabia had already stopped sending crude through the strait and pushed the volume north through Suez instead , so the withdrawal hardens a reroute already under way and stacks on top of the per-voyage Suezmax penalty this desk priced last week .

Cover and premium behave differently, which is why 7.5 transits a day should be read as sticky rather than as a spot low. A war-risk rate can be argued down inside a week once the loss record cools, as it was at the Strait of Hormuz through late June. A withdrawal removes the contract for a defined class of vessel, and reinstating it needs an underwriting committee to accept that class again. Owners will not sail an uninsured hull past a declared blockade, and no premium is on offer to change that.

Windward also logged three Chinese-linked supertankers crossing unmolested on 23 and 24 July, and read that as a carve-out from the blockade 3. No party has stated one. Every number above rests on that single assessment; no insurer, broker or Lloyd's primary source was reached to confirm the withdrawal or its scope.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Tankers carrying Saudi Arabian oil normally cross a narrow sea passage called Bab el-Mandeb, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, on their way to refineries in Europe. An armed group called the Houthis, who control part of Yemen, said in July they would attack ships linked to Saudi Arabia, and then struck two tankers. Insurers in London, who provide the war-risk cover ships need before they will sail through a dangerous area, stopped covering Saudi-linked ships from 24 July. Without that cover, owners will not risk sailing the route, so the number of tankers using it dropped by nearly half. Ships are instead taking a longer route around, through the Suez Canal, which costs more and takes longer. The important part to notice: it was not the attacks themselves that emptied the strait. It was insurers deciding, days later, that the risk was no longer one they would price.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Marine war-risk cover for a defined class of hull sits with a small number of London and Scandinavian underwriting syndicates rather than being distributed across the market, so a single committee decision to stop quoting Saudi-linked vessels removes insurability for that whole class in one step, faster than owners can assemble alternative cover.

The Houthi blockade declaration supplied the trigger, but the transit collapse tracks the 24 July cover lapse, not the 23 July strikes; the two events sit four days apart in the data because underwriting decisions run on a committee timetable, not a battlefield one.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Owners of Saudi-linked hulls face an open-ended routing cost via Suez until Lloyd's-market underwriters resume quoting cover for the class, a decision no single event can reliably predict.

    Short term · Assessed
  • Risk

    A cover lapse that persists past several weeks risks becoming the default routing pattern regardless of whether the Houthi blockade itself eases, since reinstating a withdrawn class needs a fresh underwriting decision rather than a premium adjustment.

    Medium term · Reported
  • Meaning

    The transit collapse shows an insurance market decision can ration a chokepoint as effectively as a physical blockade, without a single additional strike.

    Immediate · Assessed
Sources:Hellenic Shipping News
Mentions:Windward →Lloyd's of London →Houthis →Bab al-Mandeb →Saudi Arabia →Yemen →Yanbu →Greece →Mediterranean →Iran →Spain →Tanker War →Red Sea →London →Suez Canal →Iraq →Strait of Hormuz →Italy →
First Reported In

Update #21 · Insurers shut Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi hulls

Hellenic Shipping News· 31 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Houthi blockade cuts Saudi loadings 36%
The 23 July Houthi blockade declaration and tanker strikes triggered the war-risk withdrawal behind the transit collapse Windward quantified on 30 July.
Occurred 23 Jul 2026
Read story →
This Event
Bab el-Mandeb thins to 7.5 tankers a day
The route from Saudi Arabia's western terminals to Mediterranean refineries has thinned on an underwriting decision rather than on a strike, and withdrawn cover reverses far more slowly than a premium.
Led to
Saudi Red Sea diesel loadings collapse
The Bab el-Mandeb transit floor this desk logged 30 July strands the same Red Sea cargoes
Occurred 29 Jul 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Lloyd's Market Association
Lloyd's Market Association
War-risk underwriters price the Houthis' Red Sea attacks because the group announces its targets in advance, but the unclaimed Damietta drone gives insurers a hit with no author to price against. An attack nobody claims costs shipping more than one that is claimed, since premiums are set against a known pattern, not raw damage.
US Central Command
US Central Command
CENTCOM has announced no strike on Iran since resuming bombing on 30 July within hours of an IRGC salvo on Jordan, and centcom.mil did not respond to requests to confirm any pause. The command has gone quiet before while a larger operation was being weighed, so silence alone proves nothing about what it has or has not done.
Hengaw
Hengaw
Hengaw recorded at least 67 executions in Iran during July, of which the state acknowledged only eight, and reported the 1 August execution of protest detainee Arvin Kheirkhahan at Shahrud with no advance notice to his family. A family's first notice of a death sentence is now usually the instruction to collect a body.
Egypt
Egypt
Egypt's government asked media on 2 August to report the Damietta attack accurately, named no author, and said no findings will be published before its own investigation concludes. Cairo holds the debris and jurisdiction over an attack on its own soil, and naming a culprit now would pull it into a dispute it has avoided for five months.
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Araghchi called the Hormuz talks with Oman final-stage on 2 August, four days after his own deputy rejected Oman's lane proposal, and denied the Damietta drone strike as an Israeli false flag while two Iranian officials privately claimed it for Tehran. Iran's public position now contradicts itself on both files at once.
Bahrain and Kuwait
Bahrain and Kuwait
Bahraini and Kuwaiti aircraft flew their own strikes on Iranian depots in July with Emirati air cover behind them, and Ynetnews reports some Gulf capitals wanted the 2 August strike to proceed rather than stop. States that have already taken fire see a closing window on Iranian weakness, not a reason to pause.