Shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb dropped on Sunday after Yemeni Houthis attacked Saudi oil facilities along the Red Sea coast, while transit through the Strait of Hormuz remained low over the weekend, according to data on Monday.
Eleven commodity vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Sunday, the lowest level in months, the shipping data from Kpler showed.
Red Sea traffic has been disrupted off the coast of Yemen since last week by the Tehran-aligned Houthis, who want to blockade Saudi exports, expanding the U.S.-Iran conflict that has already choked oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz.
The shipping disruption caused prices of physical crude cargoes in the Middle East, Europe and Africa to jump to two-month highs last week.
Seven of the vessels that passed through Bab el-Mandeb were oil tankers, with three of them entering the Red Sea. Two of them are very large crude carriers (VLCCs) heading to the port of Yanbu to load Saudi crude, while the third is a Russian-linked ship, the data showed.
