The Houthis Are Advancing on the Red Sea’s Southern Exit


A pipeline strike from Iraq and Houthi pressure on Red Sea shipping expose the limits of Saudi Arabia’s alternative to Hormuz.
Read the Analysis →IMAGE //Saudi oil’s Red Sea route: Abqaiq to Yanbu, then north through Suez or south through Bab el-Mandeb. Pipeline and sea routes are schematic. NASA Blue Marble, September 2004 composite. Map: Global Recon · @IGRecon.




Their coastal gains could deepen pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil bypass, whose cargoes already reroute through Egypt when the strait is too risky.
Three of the eight hulls hit since September 5 sit in a Treasury-listed pool that loads in the Baltic as well as the Gulf.
The fighting west of Taiz is testing whether Yemen’s government can keep its coastal foothold connected to the interior.
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The pipeline is rated for 100 million tonnes a year. The one tanker at the berth that can work it in winter can move, by one analyst’s estimate, about eight percent of phase one.
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