Bab El-Mandeb, the second chokepoint front
di Lorenzo Bruno
The blockade announced by the Houthis against Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea does not, at least for now, amount to the physical closure of Bab el-Mandeb. It is nevertheless sufficient to turn the strait into a second front in the maritime chokepoint crisis. With Hormuz experiencing severe operational paralysis, the threat to the “Gate of Tears” affects the route Riyadh has used to reduce the exposure of its energy exports to the Persian Gulf. The issue extends beyond Yemen or the confrontation between the United States, Iran and their respective partners. It concerns the architecture through which crude oil, refined products, containers and industrial components move between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
DECLARING A BLOCKADE IS NOT THE SAME AS CONTROLLING THE STRAIT
On 20 July 2026, the Houthi movement announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia and warned shipping companies not to use Saudi ports. It later claimed attacks on the tankers Encelia and Layla. Saudi authorities and maritime advisories corroborated the strike on Encelia, which suffered a bow fire without crew casualties; the account concerning Layla and the claim that roughly ten vessels had turned back did not have the same degree of independent verification. Several tankers altered or reversed course and daily traffic fell. On 23 July, however, two Chinese supertankers loaded at Yanbu were still navigating through Bab el-Mandeb: passage was dangerous and reduced, not physically halted.
That distinction is critical. Under the law of naval warfare, a blockade is not validated by proclamation alone: it must be declared and notified, effective, applied impartially to neutral shipping and operated within humanitarian limits. The Houthi announcement should therefore be described as a claimed blockade or operational embargo, not as a legally perfected blockade. The Houthis do not control both shores and lack conventional naval supremacy, but they hold areas of western Yemen and field anti-ship missiles, drones, mines and fast craft. They do not need to stop every vessel; they need to raise risk until shipowners, insurers, masters and charterers decide not to transit. This is the distinction between physical and “economic” closure.
GEOGRAPHY, LAW AND ASYMMETRIC POWER
Bab el-Mandeb connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and, through Suez, to the Mediterranean. Sources place the narrowest section at roughly 26-29 kilometres, or about 14-16 nautical miles, not 18 nautical miles. Commercial traffic uses two shipping lanes of roughly two miles each, separated by Perim Island. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants transit passage through the strait and requires bordering states not to hamper or suspend it. Law does not remove operational vulnerability: a mine, drone or missile can alter market behaviour without changing the route’s legal status.
Houthi leverage arises precisely from the asymmetry between the cost of attack and the cost of protection. A comparatively inexpensive munition can compel a vessel worth hundreds of millions of dollars to divert, raise the insurance premium for an entire class of traffic and force far more sophisticated navies to maintain ships, radars, interceptors and logistics in the area. From November 2023 through 2025, according to a United States maritime advisory, more than one hundred separate Houthi attacks affected vessels connected to over sixty countries. The result was not territorial command of the sea, but a persistent capacity to veto commercial decisions.
THE SAUDI PARADOX: THE ESCAPE ROUTE FROM HORMUZ ENDS IN THE RED SEA
The threat matters because Bab el-Mandeb is not an isolated risk. Saudi Arabia can move crude from the east of the country to Yanbu through the East-West pipeline. Normal operating capacity is generally cited at about five million barrels per day, while maximum technical capacity was raised to roughly seven million in 2019. Effective export capacity is lower because of domestic use, terminals and vessel availability. The pipeline bypasses Hormuz, but crude loaded at Yanbu for Asia must cross Bab el-Mandeb or sail around Africa. Europe-bound barrels can also use Egypt’s SUMED-Sidi Kerir route: a costly but important qualification to any claim that the Saudi bypass has been wholly neutralised.
The bypass of one chokepoint therefore depends on a network of other nodes rather than a single route. Hormuz, Yanbu, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and SUMED provide partial alternatives, each constrained by capacity and destination. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that about 5.4 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products passed through Bab el-Mandeb in the first quarter of 2026, alongside liquefied natural gas flows. Reuters estimated that more than three million barrels per day of Saudi crude routed through the Red Sea towards Asia could require longer voyages in the event of effective closure.
THE PRICE OF BLOCKADE FORMS BEFORE PHYSICAL SHORTAGES APPEAR
The first impact need not be an immediate reduction in available barrels. It is transmitted through working-capital requirements, additional sailing days, bunker consumption, lower vessel availability, war-risk premiums and uncertainty over delivery schedules. Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope adds about ten days to many Asia-Europe container services; for some energy cargoes the increase can be substantially larger, depending on origin and destination. A vessel tied up for longer reduces effective tonnage supply even when the global fleet is unchanged.
The first shock therefore hits freight and insurance; the second affects industrial inventories; the third reaches final prices. Diesel and jet fuel may be more exposed than crude because refining capacity and product routes do not mirror crude-oil flows. European companies dependent on Asian components must lock more capital into stock, while exporters face a longer cash-conversion cycle. For Egypt, every diversion removes traffic and foreign currency from the Suez Canal. For Mediterranean ports, including Italian ports, a prolonged crisis changes service frequency, reliability and competitiveness relative to northern European ports and Atlantic routes.
A TOTAL CLOSURE WOULD BE DIFFICULT, BUT IT IS NOT NECESSARY
Houthis can impose substantial costs but sustaining a complete and indiscriminate closure would be harder. An offensive against all traffic would increase the probability of striking Chinese, Indian or other vessels whose countries the movement does not regard as enemies; widen the opposing coalition; expose radars, depots, launch sites and command centers to suppression operations; and risk reopening a direct war with Saudi Arabia after the relative containment achieved by the 2022 truce. Declared selectivity, however, does not guarantee operational selectivity. Opaque ownership structures, flags of convenience, sub-charters and complex cargo chains make a vessel’s effective nationality difficult to determine in real time.
The European Union has extended EUNAVFOR Aspides until 28 February 2027. Its mandate is defensive: vessel protection, maritime situational awareness and freedom of navigation, not preventive strikes on Yemeni territory. This posture limits escalation but does not eliminate the strategic problem. Escorts are expensive, interceptor stocks are finite and perfect defense does not exist. Any offensive action would require a separate political and legal basis. Within its current mandate, European deterrence rests primarily on naval protection, intelligence, coordination with shipping and diplomatic pressure.
THE REGIONAL DIMENSION: RIYADH, TEHRAN AND THE POLITICS OF THRESHOLDS
For Riyadh, the choice is not simply military. A broad campaign in Yemen could undo the effort made since 2022 to freeze a costly conflict and could again expose Saudi airports, cities and oil facilities to attack. Failure to respond, however, would mean accepting that a non-state actor can condition a route essential to the Kingdom’s exports. Houthisexploits this political asymmetry. They can increase or reduce pressure without carrying the burdens of conventional naval warfare, while Saudi Arabia must calibrate every response against the possibility of regional escalation.
Iran benefits objectively from the multiplication of fronts. Simultaneous pressure on Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb forces opponents to distribute surveillance, air-defense and escort assets over thousands of kilometers. Western sources and Houthi statements describe coordination and convergence with Tehran, but open evidence does not establish that Iran issues every operational order. The Yemeni movement retains its own leadership, interests and decision-making capacity. The rigorous formulation is therefore “strategic convergence with Iranian support”, not an automatically presumed Iranian command chain.
ASIAN POWERS AND THE PROTECTION DILEMMA
China, India and other major Asian importers have a strong interest in keeping the route open, but not necessarily in joining a Western-led military framework. Their position is complicated by the apparently selective nature of Houthi threats. If some vessels are perceived as less exposed, each state may be tempted to seek implicit protection for its own traffic rather than support a collective response. That equilibrium is unstable. Ownership and chartering chains are transnational: a vessel may be built in one country, registered in another, insured in London, managed by a Greek company and carrying Saudi crude to an Asian refinery. A promise to spare “friendly” traffic is therefore difficult to implement and cannot replace freedom of navigation as a public good.
ITALY’S EXPOSURE IS INDUSTRIAL, NOT ONLY ENERGY-RELATED
For Italy, the risk is often described through oil and gas prices, but the broader exposure lies in industrial timing. Mechanical components, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fashion inputs, electronics and intermediate goods reach Italian production systems through scheduled maritime cycles. Longer voyages increase inventory days and financing needs, weaken just-in-time models and can turn a logistics delay into a production interruption. Exporters face the opposite problem: longer delivery windows and less reliable services make Mediterranean supply chains less competitive. The Italian interest in Bab el-Mandeb therefore combines energy security, naval security, port policy, export competitiveness and the protection of working capital across manufacturing supply chains.
FOUR SCENARIOS FOR THE NEXT PHASE
The first scenario is selective coercion: intermittent attacks on Saudi-associated vessels, elevated insurance premiums and reduced but continuing traffic. This is the most sustainable option for the Houthis because it creates political leverage without requiring physical control of the strait.
The second is a de facto blockade: several successful attacks, suspension of transit by major carriers, widespread diversion around Africa and severe pressure on refined products. In this case, the market would treat Bab el-Mandeb as closed even if some vessels continued to pass.
The third is military escalation: Saudi or US strikes on Houthi infrastructure, the reopening of the Yemeni front and a possible expansion of targets to regional ports, airports and energy installations. This is the scenario with the greatest risk of miscalculation.
The fourth is negotiated de-escalation, linked both to Yemen and to the confrontation with Iran. Houthi use of the strait is compatible with Tehran’s wider regional pressure, while the movement retains an agenda of its own. A truce addressing only one dimension may reduce attacks without removing the capacity for renewed coercion.
THE GEOPOLITICAL LESSON
Bab el-Mandeb demonstrates that energy security is not the same as geological availability. It depends on corridors, terminals, pipelines, insurance, crews and private decisions made under threat. Resilience cannot be measured simply by counting produced barrels or nominal infrastructure capacity. It requires testing whether every alternative route remains usable when several crises occur at the same time.
Europe and Italy need stocks, alternative routes, diversified ports and suppliers, insurance capacity and coordination across energy, defense and industry. The Houthis need not conquer the strait; they need only make markets view transit as more costly than diversion.
SOURCES, CORROBORATION AND INFORMATIONAL LIMITS
- As of 23 July 2026, no total closure of the strait has been independently verified. Available evidence confirms a Houthi-declared embargo, attacks against maritime traffic, route diversions and a reduction in vessel transits.
- The attack on the tanker *Encelia* was confirmed by the Saudi authorities. At the time of publication, the reported attack on the *Layla* and the alleged withdrawal of approximately ten vessels remained Houthi claims without conclusive independent verification.
- Oil-price projections represent scenarios developed by analysts on the basis of different assumptions concerning the duration, intensity and geographical scope of the crisis. They should not be regarded as certain forecasts or as outcomes that have already materialized.
- The right of transit passage established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not eliminate the operational risks faced by vessels. The legal characterization of a naval blockade also requires an assessment of its effectiveness, proper declaration and notification, impartial application and compliance with the limitations imposed by international humanitarian law.
- The strategic convergence between Tehran and the Houthi movement, together with the political, technological and military support provided by Iran, does not automatically establish the existence of an Iranian chain of command governing every individual operation carried out by the Yemeni movement.
- Geographical and maritime sources place the minimum width of Bab el-Mandeb at approximately 26 to 29 kilometers, equivalent to about 14 to 16 nautical miles. Commercial navigation is channeled through narrower shipping lanes separated by Perim Island.
