Saudi tankers reverse course after Houthi threats

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At least four tankers loaded with Saudi crude have turned around following warnings from Yemen’s Houthi rebels that they will be targeted as part of a blockade of Saudi ports announced on Monday.

The Iran-backed Houthis had broadcast radio warnings to ships in the region telling them they could not pass through the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden if they had called at Saudi ports, said two people close to the situation.

The radio calls followed a message circulated among shipping companies serving Saudi ports on the Red Sea, which said vessels that called in the kingdom could be exposed to “targeting in any location within the operational reach of the Yemeni Armed Forces”, the rebel group said.

The threats from the Iran-backed militant group mark an increased risk of conflict returning to the Red Sea. The Houthis had previously launched attacks there which they said were in solidarity with Palestinians after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack triggered Israel’s war in Gaza.

Major shipping lines had recently begun a tentative return to the region despite the ongoing hostilities in the Gulf, as the Houthis — who form part of Tehran’s so-called “axis of resistance” of militant groups in the region — had remained relatively quiet during the latest conflict, apart from firing a barrage of missiles at Israel in March and early April.

The fresh threat to ships calling at Saudi ports risks choking off a vital lifeline for oil supplies. The port of Yanbu on the Red Sea has become the kingdom’s main oil-loading terminal after its Ras Tanura port in the Gulf was all but cut off by Iran’s near closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has been using an east-west pipeline to Yanbu, from where it has been exporting nearly 4.9mn barrels of crude a day since April, according to data from Kpler, the energy data company.

Three tankers that changed course in the Red Sea on Tuesday had loaded at Yanbu, while the fourth, Hong Kong-flagged New Prime, was due to load at Yanbu on July 26 but appeared to start turning around before it reached the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The latest threat to shipping comes at a critical time in the US-Iran conflict following the breakdown of a fragile ceasefire last week, which has all but closed the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, pushing prices for Brent crude back up above $80 per barrel.

Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime intelligence analyst at the marine data company Windward, said that the Iranian and Houthi threats to shipping were acting like a “pincer movement” on global energy flows, adding that the market in refined products risked particular disruption.

Tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia rose this month when the rebels opened Sana’a airport to allow an Iranian plane to fly home rebel officials and wounded Yemenis. The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of deploying fighter jets to try to prevent the plane landing, and warned they would target the kingdom if it continued “violations” of Yemeni airspace.

The aircraft landed and then flew a Houthi delegation to Tehran to attend the funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An Iranian plane flew the delegation back to Sana’a, but after the airport was attacked, it was forced to land in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. Saudi-aligned Yemeni forces claimed responsibility for the attack.

After the Houthis said they would impose a maritime “blockade” on the country, Saudi Arabia said on Monday it would “take all necessary measures to protect its ships in accordance with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”.