Commercial traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait fell to its lowest level in months after Yemen’s Houthi movement declared a naval blockade of Saudi ports and struck Saudi-flagged oil tankers, according to vessel-tracking data from Kepler reviewed by Reuters. On Sunday, just 11 commodity-laden ships crossed the southern gateway to the Red Sea, down from roughly 30 earlier in the week. The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, stated that the group had targeted Aramco facilities in Jizan and Yanbu and warned that no Saudi-linked tanker would be permitted to transit the strait. Saudi authorities have not issued a public response to the claims.

Viewed from Sanaa, the blockade is an extension of the armed forces’ campaign to pressure Riyadh, with a Yemeni source telling the pro-Iranian Al-Mayadeen network that 16 Saudi vessels had been turned back since the previous Monday and that the ban on Saudi tanker movements remained in force. Shipping industry analysts in London and the Gulf note that the disruption has already pushed physical crude cargo premiums in the Middle East, Europe and Africa to two-month highs. Among the few tankers that did cross on Sunday were the Hong Kong-flagged VLCC New Explorer, carrying two million barrels of Saudi and Emirati crude to Ningbo, China, and a vessel hauling one million barrels of Russian crude to the same destination. A second Hong Kong-flagged VLCC, New Pearl, was also exiting the Red Sea with a two-million-barrel Saudi cargo bound for Zhoushan.

The squeeze on Bab el-Mandeb compounds a parallel crisis at the Strait of Hormuz, where daily transits by commodity carriers remained below 10 vessels over the weekend despite a temporary halt in direct US-Iranian strikes. Kepler data showed seven ships crossed on Sunday, three of them Iranian-linked product tankers exiting the Gulf. On Saturday, only three vessels made the passage, all with their transponders switched off, including a VLCC heading to Qatar to load crude and an LPG carrier bound for the UAE. The sustained low traffic at Hormuz, which normally sees more than 100 commercial transits a day, reflects what Gulf-based shipping sources describe as a persistent risk premium that has not eased with the operational pause.

Analysts cited by Reuters estimate that a prolonged disruption at Bab el-Mandeb could force up to three million barrels per day of Saudi crude to divert around the Cape of Good Hope, adding up to a month to delivery times and pushing oil prices toward $115–$120 per barrel. The dual chokepoint pressure is unfolding against a backdrop of widening regional friction: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with Sky News, said Iran had “attacked” Ukraine from the first year of the war by supplying Shahed drone technology to Russia, a claim Tehran has not directly addressed. With no diplomatic channel yet visible to de-escalate the Houthi blockade and Hormuz traffic still at a fraction of pre-crisis levels, shipping insurers and charterers are reassessing routes on a near-daily basis, awaiting any signal from Riyadh or Washington on the next steps.