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Morning Edition · Sunday, September 13, 2026Published at 1:20 AM EDT · New York
Saudi Arabia Loses Its Hormuz Bypass as Houthis Complete Control of Bab al-Mandeb
With the East-West pipeline to Yanbu shut after drone strikes and the Red Sea exit contested, a round trip from the Gulf to Asian refiners via the Cape of Good Hope would take roughly 100 days, Japanese reporting says.
Saudi Arabia has lost, at least for now, both of the routes it uses to move crude to customers. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to ordinary commercial traffic since late February, with convoys moving only under naval escort. The kingdom responded by pushing about 5 million barrels a day into the 1,200-kilometre East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. That line is now shut after drone strikes that Riyadh and Baghdad both say originated in Iraq.
The other part of the problem is at the opposite end of the Red Sea. Houthi forces seized Mayun Island, also called Perim, in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, days after taking the port of Mokha. CNBC reported that the group now holds the physical approaches to a waterway that carried roughly 8 million barrels a day of oil in the second quarter.
Russian state agency TASS, citing the Japanese daily Asahi, reported that delivery times from Saudi Arabia to Asian buyers could rise about two and a half times if Bab al-Mandeb closes, because cargoes would then sail around the Cape of Good Hope on a round trip of about 100 days.
Prices have moved less than the physical disruption implies. Brent traded above $107 a barrel early Friday in Asia, according to Gulf News, then settled at $104.61. The gap between that benchmark price and the actual cost of shipping is where the added expense is showing up: war-risk cover for Red Sea transits reached about 1 percent of hull value in the third quarter, and Egypt's Suez Canal revenue has fallen from $10.25 billion to under $4 billion.
Part of a tracked trend
Hormuz Chokepoint Repricing
Recurring Gulf conflict forces energy exporters and importers to build costly workarounds around the Strait of Hormuz, permanently raising the risk premium embedded in Gulf trade and infrastructure.
Veracity: Corroborated
82/100- If true, who benefits
Tanker owners with long-haul capacity, war-risk underwriters and Atlantic Basin and Russian crude sellers gain pricing power, while Gulf producers, Asian refiners and Egypt's canal revenue absorb the cost.
- The nuance
The seizure of Mayun and the pipeline shutdown are corroborated by Al Jazeera, Euronews and CNBC, but holding an island is not the same as controlling transits, the 100-day Cape routing figure reaches the reader thirdhand through TASS citing Asahi rather than from a shipowner or charterer, and the Suez revenue figures are not sourced in the text.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
What this means
Synthesized from: The Japan Times · TASS · Al Jazeera
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Comments
2Sep 13, 5:20 AM · edited
The pipeline closure means Hormuz convoys under naval escort are now Saudi Arabia's sole remaining export channel, making convoy throughput the binding constraint on the kingdom's crude deliveries.
Sep 13, 2:00 PM · edited
With the East West pipeline down and Bab al Mandeb blocked, Hormuz is Saudi Arabia's only remaining export route; Iran struck a vessel near Qeshm in the same 24 hour window, so that one is contested too.