Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Russia-Ukraine War 2026
23JUL

Houthi blockade cuts Saudi loadings 36%

2 min read
20:33UTC

Saudi crude loadings through Bab el-Mandeb fell 36% before the Houthis struck the tankers Encelia and Layla on 23 July, turning a blockade threat into realised losses.

← Back to Ukraine rebuilds command as front freezesJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Rerouting round the Cape keeps Saudi barrels flowing but ties up ships and lifts freight.

Saudi crude loadings through Bab el-Mandeb, the strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that funnels Suez-bound shipping, fell 36% in two weeks, from 9.5 million barrels a day at the 29 June peak to 6.1 million in the week of 13 July, before a shot was fired 1. The Houthis, the Yemeni armed movement that controls the country's Red Sea coast, declared a naval blockade of Saudi-linked shipping through the strait on 20 July. On 23 July they struck two Saudi tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, with missiles and drones in the Red Sea; both caught fire, the Encelia broadcast 'not under command', and no crew casualties were reported 2.

More than 2,000 ships have already rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding up to three weeks to a Europe-bound voyage, and Saudi exporters have pushed over 70% of their barrels to the west-coast terminal at Yanbu to skip the strait entirely. The military dimension belongs to the Gulf war that took Brent past $90 on Iran's strike against Kuwait . Every barrel that rounds the Cape instead of transiting Suez ties up a ship for longer, and a fleet that turns slower charges more.

Analysts cited by Bloomberg warn that a full Bab el-Mandeb closure stacked on the Hormuz constraint could put roughly a quarter of world oil and gas at risk 3. That figure describes a ceiling rather than a base case: the strait is being avoided, not sealed, and rerouting round the Cape keeps the barrels flowing at a higher freight cost rather than removing them from the market.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Houthis are an armed group that controls much of Yemen and has fought a civil war there since 2014. In 2023 they began attacking ships in the Red Sea they linked to Israel; they have now declared a blockade specifically targeting vessels connected to Saudi Arabia. Bab el-Mandeb is a narrow strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that ships must pass through to reach the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. Two Saudi tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, were hit by missiles and drones there, and Saudi crude loadings through the strait fell more than a third in two weeks as shippers diverted cargo. That matters because Saudi Arabia can reroute some crude to its Red Sea port at Yanbu, but the slower, longer voyage round the Cape of Good Hope adds cost and time that ultimately reaches fuel buyers in Europe and Asia.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Houthi anti-ship missile and drone capability traces to transfers routed through Yemen's Hodeidah corridor, a supply chain UN Panel of Experts reporting has documented since 2015. That dependency gives external suppliers indirect leverage over Red Sea shipping without direct naval engagement of their own.

Saudi Arabia's Bab el-Mandeb exposure is structural: crude loaded at Red Sea terminals for European and North African buyers has no chokepoint-free alternative besides the slower, costlier Yanbu-to-Cape route, which is now absorbing the diverted cargoes, part of the same Gulf war Iran's Kuwait strike opened .

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    A sustained Bab el-Mandeb blockade would compound Suez-dependent Mediterranean freight costs already rising on aframax pricing, layering a second Red Sea risk premium onto European-bound cargoes.

Sources:The National·Bloomberg
Mentions:Houthis →Saudi Arabia →Bab al-Mandeb →Cape of Good Hope →Yanbu →Yemen →Iran →Fujairah →Gulf Research Centre →Red Sea →Kuwait →Bloomberg →Israel →Encelia →Layla →RUSI →Suez Crisis →Dated Brent →
First Reported In

Update #19 · Second chokepoint doubles Med freight

The National· 23 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Brent takes $90 on the ninth night
The Iran-Kuwait strike that broke Brent through $90 (ID:5121) is the wider Gulf war the Houthi Bab el-Mandeb blockade and tanker strikes now extend into the Red Sea.
Occurred 19 Jul 2026
Read story →
This Event
Houthi blockade cuts Saudi loadings 36%
A second strait now faces kinetic blockade, forcing Saudi crude around the Cape and lengthening every Europe-bound voyage before any barrel is lost.
Different Perspectives
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA inspectors logged Zaporizhzhia's 22nd loss of off-site power, ten of them in the last three months, after a thunderstorm knocked out the plant's sole surviving backup line. Grossi reads the accelerating frequency, not any single outage, as the safety signal now that the plant's redundancy is exhausted.
United States (Treasury/OFAC)
United States (Treasury/OFAC)
Washington has let general licence 134C, its Russian crude waiver, lapse for 36 days with no successor, the longest gap of the war. Treasury has not said whether the non-renewal reflects deliberate policy or administrative delay, leaving buyers to price in compliance risk rather than wait for clarity.
Slovakia
Slovakia
Slovakia dropped its hold-out on the EU's 21st sanctions package only after winning a 2028 guarantee phasing out Russian gas, the exact pipeline dependency, roughly 80% of its crude supply, that gave it leverage. Bratislava's climbdown clears the package but leaves the same single-veto mechanism intact for the next round.
Russia (Kremlin and general staff)
Russia (Kremlin and general staff)
General staff chief Gerasimov claimed Donetsk captures on 18 July that ISW says it cannot corroborate, extending a pattern ISW clocked at a 5:1 exaggeration ratio earlier this year. Moscow is conditioning its public for a possible autumn mobilisation after September's Duma elections rather than acknowledging the front has stalled.
Ukraine (Zelenskyy government)
Ukraine (Zelenskyy government)
Zelenskyy dismissed his commander-in-chief, defence minister and chief of general staff within eight days, replacing Syrskyi with Drapatyi and Hnatov with Skybiuk as protesters demanded Syrskyi go and Fedorov return. Kyiv frames the sweep as a bet on manoeuvre capacity ahead of a feared Russian autumn surge, not the disarray critics read into three changes in a week.
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom
Starmer pledged £300 million in Kyiv on 16 July toward Ukraine's Gripen E squadron, adding to the PURL expansion Trump and Rutte had announced two days earlier. London is paying into a scheme built around a shortfall NATO's own published $4bn-plus pledge does not close against Zelenskyy's roughly $15bn stated need.