they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia<\/a>, escalating risks for merchant shipping, insurance industry sources said.<\/p>\nThe move by the Houthis opens a new front against the United States in its war on Iran and widens the threat to global energy supplies and trade beyond the Gulf.<\/p>\n
Indicative war risk premiums rose to around 0.75% of the value of a ship, from around 0.3% on Friday before the Houthi announcement, according to the sources, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.<\/p>\n
Even a small change will mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra costs for a seven-day voyage.<\/p>\n
It is not clear how the Houthis would carry out a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, its northern neighbour along the Red Sea coast, or whether it would include a return to attacks on shipping.<\/p>\n
Saudi state oil giant Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil export<\/span>er, has increased use of the Yanbu terminal in the Red Sea since the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran began on February 28.<\/p>\nSaudi Arabia-flagged, owned or operated vessels, vessels en route to or from Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Red Sea\u00a0port<\/span>s were assessed at high risk of a Houthi attack, British maritime security company Ambrey said on Monday.<\/p>\n“The Houthis made mistakes during\u00a0the (2024) Red Sea crisis\u00a0in targeting shipping with out-of-date affiliations to companies. It is likely that vessels could be targeted for mistaken identities,” Ambrey said.<\/p>\n
The full closure of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the southern gateway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, would halt Saudi oil export<\/span>s to Asia and could reduce global oil supply by 7%.<\/p>\nRed Sea traffic has not fully recovered since Houthi attacks off Yemen\u2019s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said was solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.<\/p>\n
Some Houthi attacks continued until mid 2025, only ending completely with the Gaza ceasefire in October last year.<\/p>\n
Suspected Somali piracy and ship hijackings have also risen in recent months in the Gulf of Aden, adding to further dangers for shipping.<\/p>\n
(Reuters)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The insurance cost of shipping goods through the Red Sea rose on Monday after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, escalating risks for merchant shipping, insurance industry sources said. The move by the Houthis opens a new front against the United States in its war on Iran and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/83433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}