The truce between the United States and Iran has officially collapsed, with mutual attacks now increasingly intense in recent days and the reintroduction of the US naval blockade. Now the conflict, however, risks spreading beyond the Persian Gulf: Yemen’s Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, have just announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.
To understand why a Yemeni militia could frighten global energy markets, we need to look at geography and, in particular, that of the so-called chokepoints, through which a huge portion of global oil trade passes. In fact, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb (which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean through the Gulf of Aden, located between Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea) has now become an essential maritime hub for Saudi exports.
Considering that around 20% of global crude transits through the Strait of Hormuz (when open), if the two straits were closed at the same time, they would block approximately 30% of global oil transported by sea. The problems, however, do not only concern oil: around 10% of global trade also passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with numerous containers arriving from China, India and other Asian countries and headed towards Europe.
The consequences of a Bab el-Mandeb blockade on oil exports
Let’s start from the most practical point: what effect would the closure of this strait have? The answer lies in the fact that, with Hormuz already blocked, Bab el-Mandeb has become the main hub for getting oil out of the region.
After war broke out between the US and Iran last February, Saudi Arabia gradually diverted millions of barrels of oil a day to an export terminal on the Red Sea as the conflict severely affected tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. More specifically, Riyadh has pushed its East-West oil pipeline (the so-called Petroline) to its full capacity of 7 million barrels per day, rerouting crude oil from the eastern fields overland to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, to completely bypass the strait.
But that oil, to get to Asia, still has to come out of the Red Sea. And the only exit door to the south is Bab el-Mandeb. Closing this chokepoint, therefore, would once again block crude oil exports, worsening the disruption to oil supplies already triggered by the Hormuz paralysis.
In short, any threat to the Red Sea and its Bab el-Mandeb passage risks further worsening the global energy crisis, with the danger that the conflict will extend beyond the Persian Gulf.
It must be said, however, that at least for the moment the nature of today’s announcement by the Houthis is not yet clear: as reported by Reuters, the group’s military spokesperson declared the launch of a “maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the ‘eye for an eye’ principle, with immediate effect starting from the publication of this statement”.
The intensity of this maritime embargo therefore remains to be understood: it is not clear whether the Houthis will maintain the same level of attacks against Saudi Arabia as already seen in the past, or whether it is a measure to put pressure on the country to give in on local issues. The group, however, does not have the military capacity to impose a naval blockade, but in recent years it has demonstrated its ability to attack commercial ships with missiles and drones, especially in the waters of the Red Sea near the coast of Yemen.
The reaction of the markets, at least immediately, was however cautious: crude oil prices remained almost unchanged after the announcement, as reported by CNBC.
The fragile truce between Houthis and Saudi Arabia in force from 2022
The Houthis confirmed they had imposed the maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia following an attack on July 13 against the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the military group. According to the Houthi Political Bureau, Saudi Arabia attacked the airport to prevent the landing of a Saudi passenger plane. Mahan Aira company linked to the Iranian Pasdaran, which, according to reconstructions, transported a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of the former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran. The attack was not claimed directly by Saudi Arabia, but by the Yemeni government supported by Riyadh: the Houthis then responded by attacking Saudi Abha Airport, in the south of the country.
For the first time in 4 years, therefore, the Yemeni armed group and Saudi Arabia have violated the (fragile) truce reached in 2022: to understand the root of this conflict, however, we need to take a step back to 2014, when the civil war in Yemen began. The conflict, in fact, saw the Houthi rebels (supported by Iran) aligned against a Saudi-led coalition, which supported the country’s government.
In 2022, that war was essentially “frozen”: an uneasy truce between the Presidential Command Council and the Houthis froze the lines of conflict and ended coalition attacks against the Houthis. Since then the balance has effectively held up, albeit with some cracks: intermittent clashes have continued between the Houthis and various anti-Houthi forces along the lines of contact since 2022.
The moment chosen, clearly, is not random: the Houthis and Iran in fact have a common interest in putting Saudi Arabia under further pressure, to further increase the regional and global cost of the war and indirectly push the United States to stop military activities. At this stage, as ISPI notes, not only have Houthi and Iranian objectives converged, but so has the challenging approach adopted by both.
Be careful, though: these new tensions do not mean with certainty that open war will break out across the region. The ISPI analyzes also call for caution regarding the timing, while recognizing the importance of this change: with the resumption of the war in Iran, the Houthis and Saudi Arabia will probably not immediately increase mutual conflict. But the risk of escalation, strengthened by internal and regional dynamics, has already changed the framework of the Yemeni truce, eroding a delicate balance that lasted four years.
