At least two tankers have turned away from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Yemen’s Houthis said they have struck two Saudi tankers in the chokepoint in the latest Middle East war escalation, saying they had violated the naval blockade that the Yemeni forces declared earlier this week.

According to reports, one of the tankers was loaded with Saudi crude for India and the other was carrying oil to China.

“While it’s only two vessels so far, it suggests owners and operators are taking the threat seriously,” Matthew Wright, principal freight analyst at Kpler, said, as quoted by India’s Telegraph. “If this becomes a broader trend, the implications extend well beyond a handful of diverted cargoes.”

“We targeted two Saudi oil tankers, named Encelia and Layla, for their violation of the blockade decision issued by the armed forces,” the Houthi forces spokesman, Yahya Saree, said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

The Saudi Arabian state news agency SPA later confirmed a strike on one tanker that was on fire, Reuters said in a separate report about two Chinese tankers loaded with Saudi crude that were heading towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The report said the vessels were indicating there were Chinese crews on board.

The publication said that a total of twenty-seven vessels had crossed the Red Sea chokepoint on Wednesday, including five crude oil tankers and one liquefied natural gas carrier. That was down from 38 tanker crossings on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Reuters also wrote that Strait of Hormuz traffic remained a fraction of pre-war levels, with 253 energy commodity carriers stuck in the Persian Gulf. Of these, 102 were crude oil tankers, 64 were LNG carriers, and 66 were loaded with liquefied petroleum gas.

Following the Houthi declaration of a naval blockade and the continued U.S. strikes on Iranian targets that have now extended into 12 consecutive days, oil prices have climbed substantially, with Brent crude topping $96 per barrel earlier today.

Source: Oilprice.com

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