Saudi Arabia is facing a two-strait dilemma

Why in the News

Houthi forces have taken the Red Sea coast of Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and their occupation of Perim Island gives them an unobstructed line of sight over commercial traffic through a channel carrying roughly 12 percent of global trade. The capture follows a Houthi declaration of a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, itself a response to Saudi fighter jets damaging the runway at Sana’a airport to stop an Iranian aircraft landing without clearance. With the Strait of Hormuz already disrupted, Saudi Arabia had shifted its loading to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. A second closed strait therefore leaves the kingdom without an unobstructed sea route to its Asian buyers, and it has cut crude production in response.

What is the Bab el-Mandeb strait?

1. Bab el-Mandeb: It is the sole channel connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, so it is the only sea route between the Arabian Sea and the Suez Canal.
2. Perim Island: It sits inside the strait and divides it into two channels, so whoever holds the island observes and can engage traffic passing on either side.
3. Closure reroutes rather than delays: A ship denied the strait cannot reach the Suez Canal at all and has to sail around the Cape of Good Hope instead.
4. The two strait exposure: Saudi Arabia’s eastern terminals load through the Strait of Hormuz and its western terminal at Yanbu loads through Bab el-Mandeb, so its seaborne exports depend on two separate chokepoints.

How did the Houthis take the strait?

1. The war’s origin: Yemen’s civil war began in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and has flared up with renewed intensity.
2. From threat to control: The Houthis had threatened the waterway with long range weapons for years, and now hold the coastline itself.
3. The forces that failed to hold it: Saudi backed forces did not support the United Arab Emirates aligned factions deployed along the coast.
4. Infighting compounded the gap: Internal infighting among those factions aggravated the failure, so the strait was seized with minimal resistance.
5. What the blockade brought with it: Regular attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and on the kingdom’s oil related facilities have accompanied it.

What has the blockade done to Saudi oil exports?

1. The pipeline behind Yanbu: The port is supplied by the 1,200 km East West pipeline running from the eastern oilfields across the peninsula.
2. Where that oil went: Nearly 70 percent of it moved to Asia through Bab el-Mandeb before the naval blockade began in July.
3. The rerouting: Flows through the strait have dwindled sharply, and shipments have been redirected through the Suez Canal and around the African continent.
4. The production cut: Crude output fell to 6.2 million barrels per day in August, the lowest level this year, against over 10 million in January.

Why has external help not arrived?

1. The American refusal: The United States promised intelligence and declined a Saudi request for direct involvement.
2. The stated calculation: Washington does not wish to open another front, and any direct American or Western intervention would lead the Houthis to broaden their strikes.
3. The electoral consideration: The resulting spike in global oil markets is what the US administration is keen to avoid ahead of the midterm elections in November.
4. The Mecca Alliance partners: Pakistan and Turkey are reluctant to commit militarily except in the event of an invasion of Saudi Arabia, and are concerned about provoking the Houthis further.
5. The precedent: Pakistan refused a Saudi request to join the Yemen war in 2015, notwithstanding the bilateral security agreement the two signed in 1982.

What leverage have the Houthis and Iran gained?

1. Demonstrated capability: When the United States targeted them in 2025, they were reported to have shot down several American drones and nearly hit a number of fighter jets.
2. The next objective: They have begun moving to capture Marib, east of Sana’a, the centre of Yemen’s oil and gas industry.
3. Why Marib matters: Taking it would strengthen their bargaining position in any negotiated settlement.
4. Iran’s gain: Iran has added ending the blockade of Yemen to its conditions for a lasting settlement with the United States.
5. The position this creates: Riyadh faces a reluctant United States, hesitant alliance partners and two contested maritime chokepoints at the same time.

Challenges to Saudi Arabia’s seaborne export security

1. Pipeline capacity sits below export volume: The East West pipeline moves only a part of the kingdom’s exports to the Red Sea, so shifting west cannot substitute for the eastern terminals. Eg. Ras Tanura on the Gulf coast remains the largest loading terminal and lies inside the Hormuz route.
   The Fix: Expand the interconnection between the eastern fields and the Red Sea terminals, and hold standing chartered tonnage for the longer route.
2. Rerouting costs fall on the seller: A voyage around the Cape of Good Hope raises freight, crew and insurance on every cargo, and buyers on term contracts do not absorb it. Eg. War risk premiums on Red Sea transits rose steeply once shipping there came under attack from 2023.
   The Fix: Hold pre positioned floating storage and product stocks near Asian buyers, so a longer voyage does not interrupt contracted deliveries.
3. A production cut is not quickly reversed: Shutting in wells to match reduced export capacity carries reservoir and restart costs, so output does not simply resume when the route reopens. Eg. Idle spare capacity has historically taken months to bring back to full rates after a deep cut.
   The Fix: Balance through storage rather than through shut ins, using domestic and leased overseas tank capacity to keep wells producing while shipments are constrained.
4. Air defence cannot cover terminals and tankers together: Defending fixed oil facilities and moving tankers spread across a wide sea area needs different systems and far more of them. Eg. The 2019 strikes on the Abqaiq processing facility removed about half of Saudi crude output at a stroke.
   The Fix: Pair fixed site defence with escorted convoying on the Red Sea leg, so the tanker leg is not left to individual operators.
5. The security guarantee is an expectation, not an obligation: The kingdom’s protection has rested on an American commitment that carries no treaty duty to act. Eg. The United States did not respond militarily to the 2019 strikes on Saudi oil facilities either.
   The Fix: Convert the arrangement into a written commitment with defined triggers, or build the indigenous capability the expectation currently substitutes for.

Conclusion

An oil exporter’s power rests on the certainty that its cargoes will sail, and that certainty now depends on a stretch of water held by a non state armed movement. Riyadh’s options have narrowed to conceding demands it has refused for years, or sustaining counterattacks long enough to reopen the route, with no external force willing to do either on its behalf. The unresolved tension is between a security posture built on an external guarantee and a guarantor that has declined to act. The marker to watch is Marib, since control of Yemen’s oil and gas centre would largely settle the balance in any negotiated outcome.

Maritime chokepoints in global trade

1. Chokepoint: It is a narrow channel on a major shipping route with no practical alternative nearby, so traffic concentrates there and a disruption at that one point affects the entire route.
2. Strait of Hormuz: It connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and carries the seaborne exports of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Iran, the largest volume of oil and liquefied natural gas passing any single point in the world.
3. Strait of Malacca: It links the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and carries the bulk of the crude moving to China, Japan and South Korea, which is why energy planners in those countries treat it as a standing vulnerability.
4. Suez Canal and its only alternative: The canal shortens the Asia to Europe route by thousands of nautical miles, and the sole alternative, the Cape of Good Hope, adds roughly two weeks to a voyage.

Back2Basics: the Houthis

1. Name: The movement calls itself Ansar Allah, and Houthi is the family name of its founding leadership.
2. Origin: It emerged in the 1990s as a Zaidi revivalist movement in Saada province in northern Yemen.
3. Control: It captured the capital Sana’a in 2014 and holds much of the country’s northwest, where a large share of Yemen’s population lives.
4. External backing: Iran supplies weapons and technical support, which is what converts Houthi control of the strait into leverage for Tehran.

Matching Previous Year Question

“Ships from which of the following countries have to cross the Strait of Hormuz to reach out to the Indian Ocean? 1. Bahrain 2. Syria 3. Qatar 4. Egypt”