Is Bab el Mandab Strait an issue now?

It might have already been an issue, but seems like the recent* threat of Houthi involvement increases the issue.

* by the way, the threat has always been there.

Also, it's not just the straits, is the entire Gulf and Red Sea that could be hit by drones.

I didn't even think of drones hitting the Suez either.


But here is an estimation of costs of avoiding the Strait of Bab El Mandab and the Suez aided by Chat GPT....feel free to push back on these numbers as I avoided long research and went for the lazy research.

It costs an extra $500k in fuel and time to sail around S. Africa to the East Coast. However, the toll in Suez is ~$300-700k. Possibly a wash, except for the fact that is adds more than two weeks of the journey to the East Coast. That limits a carrier to possibly only five trips, vs six or seven trips annually.

All ports on the West Coast of USA still take shipments from the Malacca Strait. But I would assume that Cali/Oregon/Washington don't want to help us out here too much. I am guessing, but I think Cali doesn't want to refine much anymore. That is a critical error on their part.



....so to answer my own question with limited research. Yes, it is an issue. It has always been an issue. But I would assume that Yemeni-placed (not Yemeni) drones will ramp up to urge the US to negotiate.



Feel free to destroy any of my research or opinions.