Houthi Red Sea Shipping Ban Lifts Brent Above $94 as Hormuz Stays Shut

Houthi Red Sea Shipping Ban Lifts Brent Above $94 as Hormuz Stays Shut Yemen's Houthis banned Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, putting a second chokepoint under pressure while the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Yemen's Houthis announced a complete ban on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea on Monday (2026-06-08), and ICE Brent crude front-month traded at $94.68, up 1.71% on the day⁸. The move risks widening a shipping crisis that has already pulled the region's largest remaining oil export corridor under strain⁸. The Bab el-Mandeb strait the Houthis now threaten is the second major chokepoint under pressure in a single crisis^8,6. The Strait of Hormuz alone carried 21 million barrels per day in 2022, about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption, before its February 28 closure^2,7. A threat to a second corridor narrows the room for tankers to reroute around the first. Oil gave up earlier gains on Thursday (2026-05-14) when Israel said it was helping reopen the Hormuz passageway, but that opening now looks fragile⁴. A two-week US-Iran ceasefire followed on Wednesday (2026-05-20), though neither Washington nor Tehran offered a clear picture of what comes next³. The cost of the closure is already large. More than 1 billion barrels of oil have been lost since the strait shut, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. said on Wednesday (2026-05-20), with nearly 100 million more lost every week it stays closed¹. Even if the conflict ended at once, he said, restoring flows to 80% of normal would take at least four months¹. Pipelines offer only a partial detour. The UAE links its onshore fields to the Fujairah terminal on the Gulf of Oman through a 1.5 million b/d line and has redirected some exports through it at a maximum of 1.8 million b/d^2,1. A second bypass line is nearly half built¹. Effective unused capacity across all routes around the strait runs near 3.5 million b/d, less than a sixth of what normally transits Hormuz². Some crude is still moving. Three supertankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz during the fragile truce, shipping data show, and seven vessels sought Iranian clearance to transit⁵. That trickle stands against roughly a fifth of global oil and LNG shipments that normally pass the chokepoint⁵. Monday's (2026-06-08) Houthi announcement threatens to reopen a second front in the shipping crisis, with the potential to tighten supply further⁸. Oil spiked about 5% in early trading before paring some of those gains⁸. Strategists on JPMorgan's trading desk said the S&P 500 could rise further as euphoria returns to markets, but only on the assumption the ceasefire is not a feint from any of the parties³. The Houthi ban suggests not every actor in the region is ready to stand down⁸. With ICE Brent crude front-month holding near $94.51 [live prices], the question for crude traders is whether the truce survives a second active chokepoint⁸. Each new shipping restriction resets the calculus, and Monday's (2026-06-08) news shows the pressure on global oil flows has not eased^8,3.