At least one oil tanker carrying Saudi crude oil has transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait with its transponder switched off as risks to vessels in the Red Sea spiked this week after the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi shipments and targeted vessels offshore Yemen.
The Merbabu tanker, owned by a Greek company and laden with Saudi crude oil, transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the so-called dark mode, which many shippers and tanker operators used for months to move undetected to hostile targeting in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Merbabu emerged in the Arabian Sea late on Thursday, with its AIS positioning signal on. The previous broadcast from the vessel was from the Red Sea, per tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg.
In the previous broadcast from the Red Sea three days ago, the Merbabu openly broadcast that it has “NO LINK ISRAEL UK US”, according to data on MarineTraffic.
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Traffic at Bab al-Mandeb has not collapsed, unlike at the Strait of Hormuz, and vessels – especially those not carrying Saudi oil – were moving out and into the Red Sea on Friday.
Earlier this week, the Iran-aligned Houthis announced they had expanded their campaign against maritime traffic by targeting Saudi oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the key chokepoint on the Red Sea, through which Saudi Arabia has re-directed most of its crude oil shipments to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
China-bound tankers appear to move through Bab el-Mandeb, but some others, including Denmark-flagged products tanker Torm Innovation, have made U-turns in the Red Sea and are now heading north toward the Suez Canal.
Despite the Houthi blockade, “two China-crewed, China-bound tankers loaded at Yanbu and cleared Bab al-Mandeb apparently untouched,” maritime intelligence firm Windward said on Thursday.
“Enforcement is calibrated to crew and ownership, not cargo. Saudi crude keeps moving as long as the vessel carrying it sits outside the target set.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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