The Other Door to the Sea
Published 4 October 2026
The fallback for a closed Hormuz was always the same: send the oil another way. Saudi Arabia had a pipeline across the country to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Tankers could load there and go north through Suez or south through Bab al-Mandab, the narrow gate at the bottom of the Red Sea. The fallback worked only if that second sea stayed quiet. In July it stopped being quiet.
A threat before a closure
On 16 July Reuters, citing three anonymous sources, reported that Iran had asked the Houthis to stand ready to disrupt the Red Sea route if US strikes hit Iran's power network, and that a source close to the Houthis said missile and drone preparations were complete. That is a reported request and a reported state of readiness. It is not proof that the gate had closed, or that Tehran ordered every later attack.
Five days later the threat was already costing something. Reuters reported on 21 July that two tankers carrying Saudi crude for China and India reversed course after Houthi threats against Saudi oil ships, and turned toward Suez instead of the southern gate. India's alternative Saudi route had been disrupted by a threat, without a demonstrated closure. The president said at the time that Bab al-Mandab was not yet shut.
Claims and smoke
On 23 July the Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi tankers. Reuters attributes the claim, and it is a claim: whether a ship was actually damaged is a separate question the reporting does not settle. By 24 July the president was vowing to punish Iran and the Houthis for attacks in the Red Sea.
On 25 July Reuters verified video showing smoke from the direction of the Jizan Aramco refinery, and two trading sources had been told of possible fuel or storage damage. Aramco did not comment. In Yanbu, Greek security sources said a Greek-operated Patriot battery had intercepted two missiles. Smoke at Jizan does not establish damage at Yanbu. The Houthis claimed strikes at both places, and Saudi-backed Yemeni forces struck Houthi sites in Marib and al-Jawf.
September: the pipeline goes dark
Then came September. Reuters reported on 13 September that renewed shipping incidents, concern over the Saudi pipeline and diplomatic efforts in Oman were running at the same time. The research for this file records the East-West pipeline as knocked offline after a drone attack in the 11 to 13 September window, with the Houthis, as Reuters reported, capturing Perim Island and stepping up cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia in the same days. Who attacked the pipeline is unresolved, and this file does not merge the Houthi advance with the pipeline attack. Three sources told Reuters the Saudi crown prince sought US military help and offered intelligence support.
On 22 September Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia had restarted the pipeline to resume exports from Yanbu. Argus put the flow at 5.5 million barrels a day on 1 October, with 4 to 4.5 million available for export. By the close on 2 October a Bloomberg figure relayed by Newsquawk was about 6 million pumped, with 4.5 million available. These are capacity and availability numbers, not cargoes loaded and not new production.
The people on the coast
The fighting had a human count of its own. A UN account on 14 September said OCHA reported at least 18,000 households, or 125,000 people, displaced in Yemen since 1 September, while UNHCR separately described at least 80,000 newly displaced in recent days. Those are two different windows and are not added together. OHCHR verified eight civilian deaths and 32 injuries between 1 and 14 September, and the UN said access was constrained and operations suspended in several west-coast locations. Media claims of island and port seizures in the same story are not UN-verified maps of control.
At the UN's Geneva briefing on 29 September, the WHO's emergency director cited Yemen's health ministry for 4,481 casualties since 6 August. The briefing records two death figures, 838 in her initial account and 831 in the question-and-answer session. This file does not choose between them. The data also excludes areas under de facto authorities, and it covers the Yemen escalation as a whole, not only US or Iranian action.
So the second door to the sea was never fully shut and never fully open. It was a place where a pipeline could go dark in a drone attack, restart within about ten days, and still be described by cautious sources only in terms of what it could carry, not what it had.
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