A Houthi Red Sea blockade has taken shape in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, where Yemen’s Iran-aligned movement has positioned drones and missiles and vowed to stop ships loading or unloading at Saudi ports, threatening about 7% of global oil supply.
The chokepoint sits at the southern end of the Red Sea, and any sustained closure would strangle Saudi crude leaving the port of Yanbu, as reported by CNBC.
Roughly 2.5 to 3.5 million barrels of Saudi oil normally moves through the route each day.
How the Houthi Red Sea blockade could choke oil supply
A chokepoint matters because a narrow strait forces the world’s tankers into a single lane that is easy to threaten and hard to replace.
Close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and cargoes that feed refineries across Europe and Asia must reroute around Africa, adding weeks and cost to every shipment.
Saudi Arabia has already been shifting exports from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea through its east-west cross-country pipeline, with shipments departing from Yanbu.
That workaround is precisely what the blockade now targets, leaving the kingdom exposed at the very port it had turned to for safety.
UBS commodities analyst Giovanni Staunovo said the kingdom had raised exports from Yanbu to around 4.5 million barrels per day, more than 70% of its total crude shipments, which places an outsized share of Saudi oil within reach of the Houthi threat.
“The Houthi blockade could put at risk large parts of the Saudi exports relying on the Bab el Mandeb Strait.”
Why enforcement of the Red Sea blockade remains uncertain
So far the Houthis have proved either unable or unwilling to enforce the blockade in full, though the threat alone has persuaded some vessels to abandon plans to sail south out of the Red Sea.
Jorge Leon, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said the movement had yet to explain how it intended to enforce the closure.
Leon added that previous Houthi attacks on commercial vessels had shown the group possessed both the capability and the willingness to disrupt Red Sea shipping.
Three sources said on Thursday, 16 July 2026, that Iran had instructed the movement to close the Red Sea if the United States struck its power network.
US President Donald Trump threatened such a strike in an interview on Tuesday, 14 July 2026.
Analysts warn that a severe disruption to Saudi flows could push crude oil above $100 a barrel, a jump that would eventually feed into fuel prices from Europe to South African forecourts.
Whether the blockade takes hold now depends on the Houthis’ willingness to fire on shipping and on how Washington responds to Iran.
Until either moves, the strait remains a pressure point on the oil market, and traders will price the risk into every tanker that dares to sail south through it.
