The Bab el-Mandeb strait sits between Yemen and the African coast. It is the gateway to the Suez Canal, and it has become a problem for oil shippers. Tankers that once loaded at Yanbu on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast now take a northern path through the Suez Canal to Egypt's Sidi Kerir port instead, where they pick up their cargo.
At least six empty supertankers from Saudi Arabia have taken that long route to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a narrow passage the Houthis in Yemen have made dangerous. The detour adds thousands of miles to every trip, and the ripple effects are starting to show up in how refiners buy their crude.
For tankers heading to Asia, the alternative route around Africa's southern tip stretches the voyage to roughly 17,000 miles. That is more than double the usual distance, and it burns more fuel, takes more time, and ties up ships that could be moving other loads.
The extra cost is real, and some buyers are pushing back. Several Asian refiners refused a Saudi Aramco request to pick up crude at Yanbu, asking for Sidi Kerir instead because they could not find available ships for the Red Sea leg. One East Asian refiner is even weighing skipping Saudi oil loading next month entirely.
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Saudi Arabia is not waiting for the strait to clear. It has started shuttling crude between Yanbu and Ain Sukhna, then moving it through a pipeline to the Mediterranean. That keeps oil flowing without putting every vessel in the danger zone.
The workaround is showing up in shipping data. Vessels from South Korea's Sinokor Group, Greece's Dynacom Tankers Management, and Norway's DHT Management have all been spotted moving cargoes on this route. The six Saudi supertankers that avoided the Bab el-Mandeb at the end of last month are now making their way around Africa's western coast to reach the Mediterranean.
Saudi Arabia is also offering Chinese buyers oil from the Gulf of Oman, which sits outside the Strait of Hormuz. That is a different route entirely, and it suggests the kingdom is trying to keep its biggest customers happy no matter which waterway is causing trouble.
The numbers back up the shift. Twenty supertankers are currently waiting in the Gulf of Oman, which points to possible shuttling from the Persian Gulf through the strait. Sinokor has been active in these Saudi Persian Gulf flows, and three of four supertankers carrying about 8 million barrels from Saudi Gulf ports since August 11 are Sinokor-owned.
The disruption is not hitting everyone equally. Japanese and South Korean refiners are still planning to collect their Saudi crude from Sidi Kerir next month, even with the higher costs. European refiners received their full Saudi allocations for September, which eased concerns after the nominations process was delayed by roughly a week.
China is a different story. Its contractual oil purchases are expected to stay well below pre-war levels because of the shipping disruptions. Saudi term allocations for Asian customers also remain below pre-war levels, and overall exports are still lower than they were before the war started.
So what does this mean for you? Oil that takes longer to move costs more to deliver, and those costs have a way of showing up in fuel prices eventually. The rerouting is not just a shipping story - it is a supply story. When the world's biggest oil exporter has to send tankers around Africa to reach its customers, every barrel gets more expensive to move.
The situation could change quickly if the Red Sea becomes safe again. Until then, Saudi Arabia is finding workarounds, refiners are adjusting their plans, and the global oil market is paying a quiet tax it did not have to pay before. For investors, the lesson is simple: the path oil takes to market matters just as much as how much oil is on the water.
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