Yemen's Houthi rebels fired missiles at Israel on Saturday and signaled they may soon block the Bab el-Mandeb strait to shipping. That would choke off the last open sea route for Middle Eastern oil heading west.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the group's military spokesman, said the strikes targeted "sensitive Israeli military sites." Hours later, deputy information minister Mohammed Mansour went further. "We are conducting this battle in stages," he told local media, "and closing the Bab el-Mandeb strait is among our options."
Brent crude closed Friday at $107.86 a barrel. WTI settled near $100.92. Traders expect both to gap higher when Asian markets reopen Monday.
Two chokepoints, one crisis
The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut to commercial tanker traffic since March 2. Roughly 20 million barrels a day used to pass through it. The Bab el-Mandeb strait, at the southern tip of the Red Sea, handles another 4.8 to 7 million barrels daily, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
If the Houthis follow through, both passages would be blocked at the same time. That has never happened. Together, the two straits account for roughly a quarter of all seaborne oil, or around 25 million barrels a day that would need to find other routes or simply not move.
"The Houthis' threat here is a real one," said Gregory Brew, senior analyst at the Eurasia Group. If they targeted Saudi Arabia's Yanbu port on the Red Sea coast, Brew added, the disruption could reach 7 million barrels per day on its own.
Goldman Sachs warned Friday that a credible Houthi threat to Bab el-Mandeb could push oil toward $120 a barrel.
Three weeks of silence, then missiles
For much of the war's first month, the Houthis stayed quiet. That puzzled analysts. The group had spent 2024 and 2025 attacking Red Sea shipping in response to the Gaza conflict, forcing vessels to reroute around Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
Their silence suggested Tehran was holding them in reserve. Senior Houthi officials had already aligned militarily with Iran on March 14, declaring "Hour Zero" for coordinated operations and calling a Bab el-Mandeb blockade a "primary option." Saturday's missiles made clear the wait is over.
The timing matters. Israel and Iran have been locked in an escalating exchange since early March, with strikes hitting infrastructure on both sides. Bringing the Houthis in opens a southern front and puts another critical shipping lane at risk.
What a blockade would mean
The strait is just 18 miles wide at its narrowest. Houthi forces control Yemen's western coast and proved throughout 2024 they can threaten vessels with missiles and drones out to 200 kilometers.
A closure would cut Europe off from Gulf oil almost entirely. Tankers that currently bypass Hormuz by loading at Red Sea terminals like Saudi Arabia's Yanbu port would have nowhere to go. Airlines already warning of fuel shortages would face an even grimmer picture.
Asian buyers would fare somewhat better. Shipments from West Africa and the Americas would still flow. But competition for those barrels would spike, pushing prices higher everywhere.
Ahmed Nagi, senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that roughly 10 percent of global trade passes through the strait. Blocking it would not just hit oil. Liquefied natural gas, container shipping, and grain exports all use the same narrow corridor.
What to watch
The next 48 to 72 hours are critical. If the Houthis follow Saturday's strike with attacks on commercial shipping, oil will likely jump past $115 at the Monday open. Insurers already refusing to cover Hormuz-transit cargo may extend exclusion zones to the southern Red Sea.
Washington still has carriers in the region from the Hormuz standoff, and a U.S.-led coalition patrolled the Red Sea through much of 2024. But protecting two straits at once would stretch even American naval capacity.
For now, the threat alone is moving markets. Every tanker operator and refinery buyer in the world is recalculating risk. The math keeps getting worse.