Iran-aligned Houthi forces seized the Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday, September 10, sending the crude oil price above $100 as they pushed toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the second chokepoint on a route where the Strait of Hormuz is already choked. Four Yemeni government military sources told Reuters the Houthis had taken Mocha and reached the strategic Hanish Islands, while government forces relocated south to Dhubab, directly on the strait opposite Perim Island, as the Times of Israel reported. Control of Dhubab and Perim, the sources said, is the key to controlling the strait itself.
The crude oil price climbed above $100 as the risk registered. West Texas Intermediate traded at $100.90 a barrel and Brent at $105.71 at press time, though both were down about 1.5% on the day, easing after spiking earlier in the week to roughly $105 and $109 respectively, per OilPrice.com. The move that matters is not the intraday pullback but the level: with Hormuz already constrained, a threat to the second major chokepoint on the same oil route is a different trade from a threat to one.
WTI crude oil climbed above $100 during the week on the Red Sea escalation before easing to about $101. Source: OilPrice.com.Why Bab el-Mandeb Matters for the Crude Oil Price
Bab el-Mandeb is the southern outlet of the Red Sea, an 18-mile-wide passage between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea that funnels Gulf crude oil and fuel toward the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline, and carries Asia-bound cargoes including Russian oil.
Crude oil and petroleum liquids moving through it averaged 8.1 million barrels a day in the second quarter of 2026, up from 5.4 million a day in late 2025, according to the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook. That increase is the whole problem: volumes rose precisely because traffic through Hormuz, which the EIA estimates fell to 4.9 million b/d from 21.6 million before the conflict, rerouted through the Red Sea to avoid the first chokepoint.
The two chokepoints therefore compound rather than add. The EIA describes Bab el-Mandeb as “one of the alternative routes used to move Saudi Arabia’s oil shipments while avoiding the Strait of Hormuz,” and Saudi Arabia has been shipping millions of barrels of crude oil through its western Red Sea port of Yanbu to do exactly that.
A Houthi grip on the southern strait would threaten the escape valve that the Hormuz disruption created, leaving tankers to divert around the Cape of Good Hope, which the EIA notes increases transit time and shipping costs. One analyst told Al Jazeera the passage is narrow enough, about 18 miles, that the Houthis “could control it just with artillery,” without needing missiles or drones.
Investor Takeaway
The second chokepoint threatens the first’s workaround: Bab el-Mandeb’s 8.1 million b/d flow grew because Hormuz cargo rerouted through it, so a Red Sea disruption removes the alternative route rather than opening a separate one.
What the Escalation Does to Crude, Freight and Insurance
The price read is a market pricing a wider risk band, not a confirmed closure. Crude sits above $100 on the escalation but eased on the day, and FinanceFeeds’ technical read has Brent’s breakout pointing toward $112.80 if momentum holds. The Houthis said international navigation remains safe and that their operations target specific vessels, though Saudi ships remain under a previously announced naval blockade, so the near-term freight question is whether carriers treat Bab el-Mandeb as passable or start routing around Africa.
Brent crude oil spiked toward $109 during the week on the Red Sea escalation before easing to about $106. Source: OilPrice.com.The knock-on runs beyond crude oil. A sustained crude premium feeds the inflation path central banks are forecasting against, a transmission FinanceFeeds documented when the Gulf export disruption became a bond story, lifting the 10-year Treasury yield and rate-hike odds. That overlay is sharper now, with the same crude oil spike feeding into the compressed PPI, CPI and Fed-decision calendar bearing down on markets this fortnight. A second chokepoint does not just raise the barrel; it hardens the inflation read into the September 16 Fed meeting.
A “New and More Dangerous Phase” for Yemen’s War
The ground offensive has revived the question of whether Yemen’s fragile truce is finished. UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council on Thursday that “the question before the international community is no longer whether Yemen’s war will resume,” but how to address “a new and more dangerous phase,” one whose consequences “will not stay within Yemen’s borders,” as Al Jazeera reported from the briefing.
He said fighting had spread across five provinces and displaced more than 11,400 households since September 3, while the US representative accused the Houthis of acting as “agents and tools of Iran.” Yemen’s internationally recognized government has not formally conceded that Mocha fell, describing the movement as a tactical redeployment, so the map is still contested even as the strategic picture darkens.
What the next weeks decide is narrow but consequential: whether the Houthis convert the capture of a coastal city into actual fire control over the strait. If they do, the reroute that has absorbed Hormuz’s lost barrels closes, and the crude oil premium that eased on the day has room to widen again. That question sits directly on top of the scenario FinanceFeeds mapped in its WTI $115 bull versus $80 bear case on the Hormuz risk premium, where intensified shipping attacks in the Red Sea were named as the route to the higher-price tail.
Investor Takeaway
Fire control is the trigger to watch: taking Mocha is not the same as controlling Bab el-Mandeb, so the crude oil price hinges on whether the Houthis reach Dhubab and Perim, not on the city’s capture alone.