Houthi blockade ‘likely to increase disruption’ to Saudi oil exports
To recap, the Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen including the coast at the mouth of the Red Sea, announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on Monday.
The announcement already appears to be having an impact. Two tankers which had just loaded Saudi crude bound for China and India at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu made U-turns on Tuesday, heading towards the Suez Canal rather than out through the Bab el-Mandeb into the Indian Ocean.
Assessing the situation, British maritime risk management group Vanguard said:
The developments represent the first confirmed changes to commercial tanker routing following the (Houthi) embargo and are likely to increase disruption to Saudi crude exports and regional shipping patterns.”
With the war shutting the strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea has served as the main alternate route out for millions of barrels of Saudi oil per day, diverted by pipeline through Yanbu.
Key events
Brent crude passes $92 a barrel, highest price since June
Oil rose in Asian trade on Wednesday, with Brent crude hitting its highest price in more than a month, as Iran targeted US radar and air defence installations in the Gulf.
Brent crude was trading up 1.2% at $92.09 a barrel at around 0130 GMT, its highest intraday price since 11 June.
West Texas Intermediate, the main US oil benchmark, climbed 1.1% to $85.23.
The US military has confirmed a third service member is believed to be dead in Friday’s attack on a base in Jordan and identified them as Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of New York.
The confirmation brings the death toll to 18 US service members killed since the war began.
Donald Trump has returned to threatening Iranian nuclear sites, in particular Pickaxe Mountain. Here’s an explainer on the mountain, including why it has captured Trump’s attention and how the US could potentially strike at the deeply buried target.
Global trade could be disrupted by Houthi rebels at a second chokepoint
Coming back now to the blockade of Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and how it could affect oil and trade.
The rebels say they have closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait to Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa. The Houthis claim to have forced six ships to reroute on Tuesday, but there was no independent confirmation.
“If Bab el-Mandeb comes under pressure at the same time as shipping in the Gulf, you have disruption around two of the world’s most important maritime routes at once,” says Clionadh Raleigh, the founder of ACLED, a conflict monitoring service.
More than 7 million barrels of petroleum a day transited Bab el-Mandeb in June, compared to around 4 million before the Iran war, according to an analysis published on Monday by Allison Minor, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration.
Saudi Arabia has been recently exporting some 4 million barrels of oil a day through its Red Sea port of Yanbu, blunting the impact of the closure of the strait of Hormuz.
Saudi could still get crude to market without using Bab el-Mandeb, by shipping up to 2.5 million barrels a day across the Red Sea to Egypt, whose SUMED pipeline can carry it to the Mediterranean. It could also ship 1 million barrels a day through the Suez Canal.
International shippers could also reroute, as they did at the height of the war in Gaza. But that means going the long way around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, adding one or two weeks to voyages – and raising costs.
US Central Command (Centcom) has just provided some more information about vessels attacked by Iran in the strait of Hormuz and the flow of oil through the chokepoint.
Over the past three months, Iran has attacked more than 30 commercial vessels transiting the international waterway vital for regional and global trade. The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation.
Despite Iranian aggression, the Strait of Hormuz remains open for commercial vessel transit. Since early May, CENTCOM forces have helped facilitate the transit of approximately 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil.”
US strikes completed for night
US Central Command says its strikes for the night have been completed. The strikes included hitting aircraft hangars and drone storage sites, and lasted about an hour. We’ll have more details as we find out more.
Prior to today’s round of strikes, Iranian authorities say US attacks in just the past three weeks have killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 500 others.
Both the US and Iran have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people. Workers on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in Gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also been killed during the conflict.
Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting a US strike has hit a military site near Tabriz, the capital city of East Azerbaijan Province, in north-western Iran.
A little more detail on those US strikes: Iranian state media says air defence activity has been heard in western, eastern and north-eastern Tehran. The time in Tehran is 3.40am.
To recap some news from earlier today, Donald Trump said the US will be hitting the Pickaxe Mountain area, located near Iran’s heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, “pretty soon”.
It is unclear if today’s US strikes are targeting Pickaxe Mountain.
Pickaxe Mountain is a heavily fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes that experts assess as beyond the reach of the most powerful bunker buster bombs in the US arsenal. The site is linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s military leaders said any attack on nuclear or “other sensitive facilities” would be considered a major escalation, according to a statement reported by Iranian state media.
“We declare that if the invading and terrorist military of that country enters such a phase, we will regard it as an expansion of the war across the region, and all interests of the United States, its allies, and its supporters will become targets of powerful attacks by the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the statement from the armed forces’ Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
US launches new strikes on Iran for 11th consecutive night
US Central Command has announced it has begun striking military targets in Iran for the 11th consecutive night.
The strikes are designed to continue degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz, it said.
We’ll bring you more details on these strikes as we learn more.
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