Sailors named the Bab el-Mandeb “The Gate of Tears” because many of them died there. At its narrowest the strait is roughly 18 to 20 miles wide, with bad weather, reefs under the surface and currents that are hard to predict.
It sits between Yemen on one side and Djibouti and Eritrea on the other, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Oil, and what the attacks cost
Before 2023, more than 9 million barrels of oil moved through the strait every day. Attacks by the Houthis, an Iranian-backed rebel group based in Yemen, pushed that down to 4.1 to 4.2 million barrels a day, according to an April 2026 analysis on the site DaveManuel.com. Another passage in the same piece puts throughput down more than 50 per cent from pre-conflict levels.
The Houthis have fired anti-ship ballistic missiles, sent drones and laid mines in the strait. Many shipping companies decided it was too dangerous and sail around the Cape of Good Hope instead. That adds 10 to 14 days to each voyage. The same analysis says Suez Canal revenue fell by roughly 60 per cent through mid-2024.
The 2024 figures on cost are sharp. Marine insurers formally reclassified the Red Sea as an active war-risk zone, and war-risk premiums for Red Sea transits rose by multiples. Added insurance cost per voyage ranged from several hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million depending on the vessel. Rerouting around the Cape added another $1 million to $2 million in bunker fuel.
Hormuz and the pipeline
The Strait of Hormuz handles about 21 million barrels a day, around 20 per cent of global consumption, so the Bab el-Mandeb carries only a fraction of that. Even so, the analysis argues the two are not separate risks. Crude leaving the Persian Gulf for European and Mediterranean markets often has to pass through both.
Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline is often offered as the answer to Hormuz risk. It runs from the Eastern Province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu and can carry roughly 5 million barrels a day. But it serves Saudi production only, not Iraqi, Kuwaiti or Emirati oil. And from Yanbu the crude still has to go through the Bab el-Mandeb to reach Europe.
