Houthis Reach Strategic Red Sea Island as Saudi Pipeline Shutdown Tightens Pressure on Global Oil Flows
By Jahanzaib Saqib — SCN NEWS
ADEN/DUBAI — Gulf oil supplies came under renewed pressure on Friday as Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis reached the strategic island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait while Saudi Arabia temporarily shut the East-West pipeline that has become one of its most important alternatives to the disrupted Strait of Hormuz. The simultaneous developments threaten two routes that Saudi Arabia has relied upon to keep crude moving during the six-month-old Iran war, raising the prospect that disruptions once concentrated around the Persian Gulf could increasingly squeeze energy exports on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula as well.
Four Yemeni government sources told Reuters that Houthi forces had reached Perim, also known as Mayun, after a rapid offensive down Yemen's Red Sea coast. Two sources from the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government said government forces withdrew from the island and that the Houthis also took Dhubab, the mainland coastal town facing it. The advance followed the Houthis' seizure of Mocha on Thursday and their movement into the Hanish Islands, giving the group substantially greater leverage around the southern entrance to the Red Sea and the approaches to the Suez Canal. AP separately reported that officials confirmed the capture of Mayun, describing it as the Houthis' most significant territorial advance in years.
Bab el-Mandeb is one of the world's most consequential maritime chokepoints, connecting the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea and ultimately the Suez Canal. About 12% of global goods normally move through the strait, according to AP, and its importance to energy markets has increased sharply since the Iran conflict disrupted the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi crude that can no longer move normally through Hormuz has increasingly depended on pipelines carrying oil westward to Red Sea terminals and ships then navigating through waters now exposed to the expanding Houthi presence.
That makes Friday's second development particularly significant. Saudi Arabia said its 1,200-kilometer East-West pipeline was temporarily shut as a precaution after attacks in the Riyadh and Medina regions. Saudi officials said drones involved in the attacks came from Iraq, although responsibility had not been conclusively established, and Riyadh said it had so far refrained from retaliation following a request from Iraq's prime minister while reserving the right to protect its interests. Iraq condemned the attacks.
The East-West pipeline runs from Saudi Arabia's oil-producing east toward the Red Sea port of Yanbu, allowing crude to bypass Hormuz entirely. Reuters reported that it had been carrying roughly 4 million to 5 million barrels per day in recent months — equivalent to about 4% to 5% of global oil supply — as Saudi Arabia relied more heavily on western export routes during the conflict. The pipeline shutdown therefore affects not a secondary piece of infrastructure but one of the principal mechanisms built specifically to keep Saudi crude flowing when the Gulf's maritime exit becomes dangerous or inaccessible.
The combination creates a potentially more serious energy-security problem than either development would in isolation. Hormuz, historically the transit route for around one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas trade, has already been effectively closed by the regional conflict, according to Reuters. Saudi Arabia's ability to shift crude west through the East-West pipeline and then export it from the Red Sea helped provide an alternative. With the pipeline temporarily shut and Houthi forces simultaneously advancing around Bab el-Mandeb, both the land bypass and the maritime route it feeds are now exposed to disruption.
Oil markets have already absorbed months of supply uncertainty. Reuters reported Friday that crude was on course to finish the week above $100 a barrel for the first time since mid-May, while the International Energy Agency said Saudi crude supply had fallen to its lowest level in more than three decades, partly because of attacks on vessels transiting Bab el-Mandeb by Houthi-linked groups. The pipeline attack adds another vulnerability just as governments and traders have been searching for alternatives to normal Gulf export routes.
The Houthis said commercial navigation through the Red Sea remained safe for companies other than Saudi vessels, which they have previously said are subject to a ban. Such assurances have not removed market concerns because the group's territorial gains put forces closer to a narrow shipping corridor that can be threatened through missiles, drones, boats and potentially shorter-range weapons positioned near the coast. The significance of Perim is geographical: the island lies directly within Bab el-Mandeb, while Dhubab faces it from Yemen's mainland coast.
The advance also represents a sharp escalation from Thursday's capture of Mocha. Government forces indicated Friday that they planned a counteroffensive to recover territory lost along the Red Sea coast and said weapons and aircraft would be deployed against Houthi movements in strategic areas, including approaches to Mocha. Whether those forces can reverse the rapid territorial losses remains uncertain, but the fighting has shifted the Yemen front from a largely contained civil-war battlefield toward infrastructure and maritime corridors with immediate consequences for international energy markets.
Reuters reported Thursday that the Houthi offensive had proceeded with direct guidance from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, citing sources who said Tehran had instructed the group to intensify pressure on Saudi Arabia and promised additional funding, weapons and senior officers. Iran publicly rejects the characterization that it directs Houthi military operations, describing the group as an ally rather than a proxy. That distinction remains important because claims of Iranian operational control are disputed and have not been publicly acknowledged by Tehran.
The strategic consequences nevertheless extend directly into the wider Iran conflict. If Houthi forces can exert greater pressure on Bab el-Mandeb while Hormuz remains disrupted, Iran and aligned forces could gain leverage around two maritime corridors on opposite sides of the Arabian Peninsula. The result would not necessarily require either strait to be physically sealed: sustained risk to commercial shipping can raise insurance costs, divert vessels around Africa, delay deliveries and reduce the effective amount of oil reaching global markets.
Saudi Arabia's security calculations are also becoming more difficult. Reuters reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called U.S. President Donald Trump at least twice on Thursday seeking American military assistance against the Houthis, citing two sources familiar with the discussions. Washington was not prepared to undertake direct military action at that point but offered intelligence sharing and targeting assistance, the sources said; the White House did not confirm the reported calls but said the United States remained in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and Yemen's internationally recognized government.
The pressure on Riyadh is therefore emerging simultaneously on land, at sea and across critical energy infrastructure. The kingdom has sought to avoid a renewed large-scale confrontation with the Houthis after years of costly involvement in Yemen's civil war, but the group's advance toward Bab el-Mandeb now intersects directly with Saudi Arabia's ability to export oil during the Hormuz disruption. A conflict that Riyadh had spent years trying to contain across its southern border is increasingly affecting infrastructure central to the kingdom's role in global energy markets.
For international markets, the central issue is no longer simply whether Hormuz eventually reopens. The infrastructure developed to circumvent that chokepoint is itself being tested. Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline was constructed in the 1980s precisely to move oil from the Gulf-facing east to the Red Sea when Hormuz was threatened; the Red Sea then provided the maritime continuation of that bypass toward Europe and other markets. Friday's developments exposed vulnerabilities at both stages of that alternative route.
That is what makes the capture of Perim and shutdown of the pipeline more consequential than another territorial shift in Yemen. The Iran war has already demonstrated the global economic cost of concentrating energy flows through narrow maritime passages. Now, as Gulf exporters attempt to reroute supplies around one threatened chokepoint, instability is following those barrels toward another.