Vessel traffic at the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait crumbled on Wednesday from the previous day amid a Houthi claim they have hit a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea and hopes that Oman and Iran could reach a deal on jointly managing Hormuz.
On Wednesday, only two vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz, down from 8 on Tuesday, according to ship-tracking data reviewed by Reuters.
At Bab el-Mandeb, the chokepoint on the Red Sea into the Arabian Sea, only one commodity vessel, a Bahamas-flagged dry bulk carrier, transited on Wednesday, compared to 20 on Tuesday, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters.
On Wednesday, the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen claimed a “precise hit” on a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces conducted a military operation targeting the Saudi oil tanker ‘Wafaa’ north of the Red Sea off the Yambu area using several ballistic missiles,” according to a Houthi statement carried by Middle East news outlet Al Bawaba.
NCC WAFA is a Saudi-flagged products tanker, which was last seen transmitting on July 19, southbound in the Red Sea toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, according to maritime intelligence group Windward.
The tanker has been dark since July 19. After the July 22 blockade announcement by the Houthis, the WAFA likely U-turned and headed back north through Saudi coastal waters, “where the missiles found her anyway, hundreds of kilometers from the declared blockade zone,” Windward’s analysts said.
Analysts at security and vessel-tracking firms told the BBC this week that the threats to shipping in the Gulf and the Red Sea have escalated to the worst safety situation since the Iran war began.
Yet, the market looks cautiously optimistic that oil and gas flows could rebound, as Iran and Oman appear to be close to agreeing on joint management of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said the deal with Oman was “in the final stages”.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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