Brent Near $100 as Saudi Red Sea Route Faces Blockade and Hormuz Crossings Stay at Single Digits
ICE Brent crude front-month trades at $97.31 as Gulf supply routes face simultaneous disruptions, with analysts forecasting $120 if Bab el-Mandeb closes fully.
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $97.31 a barrel on Monday (2026-09-07), up 1.07% on the day, still close to the $100 level it crossed in late July after Yemen's Houthis struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. WTI front-month stood at $92.70. Six weeks on from that initial shock, prices have not retreated materially — a sign of how entrenched the underlying supply disruption has become.7
Standard Chartered Bank Energy Research Head Emily Ashford framed the situation plainly on Wednesday (2026-07-22): this is "a two choke-point problem." The Strait of Hormuz had already been effectively closed before the Houthi escalation against Saudi Red Sea terminals began. Both corridors remain impaired.6
The Hormuz disruption predates the Red Sea escalation by months. Iran moved to close the strait more than three months before June 2026. HSBC Senior Global Oil and Gas Analyst Kim Fustier, writing on Wednesday (2026-07-22), said vessel transits had fallen back toward April-May lows, "with several days at single-digit vessel transits, down 90 percent from normal once again." Fustier estimated that implies Hormuz liquids flows of less than 2 million barrels per day.6,1
Riyadh had adapted to Hormuz by routing exports through its Red Sea terminals. Before the Houthis declared their naval blockade on Monday (2026-07-20), Saudi Arabia was shipping 5.9 million barrels per day from its Yanbu terminals, record volumes reflecting the scale of the traffic Riyadh had shifted away from the Gulf. The Houthi blockade then targeted that very route, threatening over 4 million barrels per day of redirected Saudi crude.3,5
Markets moved fast when tanker strikes confirmed the Houthis were acting on their threat. ICE Brent crude front-month surged more than 6% to $100 a barrel on Thursday (2026-07-23), its first time above that level since late May, while WTI front-month rose over 5% to $91.24, crossing $90 for the first time since June 11. Brent has since drifted roughly 3% below that July peak. The pull-back is modest given the disruption remains unresolved.7
The bypass problem is structural. Fustier calculated that existing and planned pipeline capacity to route around Hormuz, including projects under construction and under study, totals up to 11 million barrels per day. Normal Hormuz throughput runs at 19 to 20 million barrels per day. DW reporting, citing IEA data, confirmed that expanding bypass capacity to anything close to that scale would take years and billions of dollars.6,8
Shipping is already adjusting course. A Greek-owned Suezmax, the Amazon, departed Yanbu loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude and switched its destination to the Suez Canal after the Houthi threat emerged, Rigzone reported. But the Suez Canal route itself requires transiting Bab el-Mandeb. "The Bab el-Mandeb risk picture is deteriorating," a MarineTraffic analyst said on Wednesday (2026-07-22). If Houthi interdiction of that strait succeeds, ships face rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks to delivery times and pushing up freight costs for European and Asian importers.3,4
Reuters has reported that 7 million barrels per day or more transit Bab el-Mandeb daily. A full closure would compound losses that are already substantial: OilPrice.com noted in early June 2026 (2026-06-08) that roughly 13 million barrels per day had been lost due to closed Hormuz. FX Empire's price forecast puts a $120 scenario on the table in that combined-closure case. Saxo Bank, citing Bloomberg data, reported in the week of July 13 (2026-07-13) that crude had risen as much as 65% year-to-date; both ICE Brent and WTI front-month were up more than 50% over the 12 months to July.5,1,2
Dubai crude front-month last printed at $98.71 a barrel on Monday (2026-09-07), above the ICE Brent front-month level. Yet Dubai carries a bearish storage-driven signal that cuts against the wider bullish consensus, suggesting not all physical participants are pricing in the worst case across both chokepoints simultaneously.
The immediate signal to track is Bab el-Mandeb vessel flow. Ships leaving Yanbu can reach the Suez Canal only by passing through that strait. If Houthi strikes force a sustained diversion, the 4-million-barrel Red Sea substitute closes with it, and Saudi Arabia is left with no functioning export corridor from either the Gulf or the Red Sea.