Houthis claim strike on Ras Tanura
Ras Tanura is the headline. Bab el-Mandeb is the risk. On 27 October the Houthis claimed a ballistic missile strike on Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s largest refinery (550,000 barrels a day, per Reuters). Saudi Arabia did not immediately confirm it. Our view: with Hormuz shut, the bigger freight risk is the ground fighting the Houthis reported near Bab el-Mandeb, the strait Gemini ships now use. Maersk tied its Suez return to “the absence of further escalation.” Expect war-risk surcharges on Saudi Red Sea calls. Our call: if Riyadh launches a ground offensive, at least one major carrier pauses or drops a Jeddah call by early December.
The missile aimed at Ras Tanura matters less than the fighting at Bab el-Mandeb
On Tuesday 27 October, Yemen’s Houthis said they had hit Ras Tanura with a ballistic missile. Ras Tanura is Saudi Arabia’s largest refinery, able to process 550,000 barrels of oil a day, according to Reuters. It also has an export terminal on the Gulf coast.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said “The strike was accurate,” and that it “caused massive fires at the targeted site,” CBS News reported. Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the hit. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, said Saudi Arabia “contained a fire near Ras Tanura’s terminal,” according to Reuters.
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It is a strike claim on the far side of the kingdom from Yemen. In our view, it is not the part of the day that should worry forwarders most.
What happened on 27 October
The Ras Tanura claim came in a busy 24 hours.
Overnight, the Saudi-led coalition said it “intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles launched by the terrorist Houthi militia” at the kingdom’s Eastern Province, CBS News reported. It also said air defences “intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched towards Riyadh by Yemen’s Houthi militia,” per Gulf News. Saudi Civil Defence said “debris from two intercepted Houthi ballistic missiles fell over Riyadh,” damaging a building. No injuries were reported. Riyadh briefly issued an air raid alert (Reuters).
The Houthis also claimed attacks on “two military transport jets at Najran Airport” and on an airbase at Khamis Mushait, both in Saudi Arabia’s south-west. Saudi Arabia did not immediately confirm these (Reuters).
Then came the part with the most direct shipping weight. The Houthis said they repelled an advance by forces they called “Saudi-backed” near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That is the narrow channel at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Every ship running between Asia and Suez passes through it. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported Saudi strikes on Mocha, a Yemeni port city on the same stretch of coast. Saudi Arabia did not immediately confirm that (Reuters).
The political temperature rose too. On Monday, Egypt’s parliament authorised the military to help defend Saudi Arabia if asked (Reuters). A Houthi official said the move “declares war against the Republic of Yemen,” CBS News reported. Egypt’s President el-Sisi said the deployment “does not include an attack on Yemen.”
Brent crude was hovering around $116 a barrel early on 27 October, CBS News reported.
Why Ras Tanura is the smaller story
Reuters notes that nearly all Saudi oil exports leave through two places: Ras Tanura on the Gulf and Yanbu on the Red Sea. The Houthis have attacked both before. Ras Tanura has also been a target for Iran: CBS News reported that an Iranian drone attack in early March forced a partial shutdown.
But Ras Tanura sits inside the Gulf, behind the Strait of Hormuz. And Hormuz is barely working. On 27 October Iran’s armed forces chief said “The strategic waterway is completely closed,” Gulf News reported. President Trump has claimed the US “now controls the Strait of Hormuz,” CBS News reported. Even so, a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile and disabled in the strait last week, according to the UK’s maritime security agency UKMTO, cited by CBS News.
As Hormuz traffic has been disrupted, Saudi oil exports “have increasingly relied on Red Sea routes,” gCaptain reported in September. In plain terms, the kingdom’s real lifeline now runs west to Yanbu and out through the Red Sea.
So a hit on Ras Tanura is a signal of reach. It is not, by itself, a new block on trade. The risk to freight is on the other coast, where the Houthis are now fighting on the ground.
The Red Sea route carriers just came back to
From late 2023, carriers sent Asia-Europe ships around the Cape of Good Hope instead. DHL estimated at the time that this added 10 to 15 days to Asia-Europe transits (India Seatrade News). This year they started coming back.
In August, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s Gemini Cooperation (their joint network of shared services) added Jeddah to its AE15 Asia-Mediterranean loop, gCaptain reported. Maersk’s MECL service, which links India and the Middle East with the US East Coast, also returned to Suez with an eastbound Jeddah call.
In September the pair moved four more services to Suez: AE5 and the AE11 and AE12, plus ME2 from India to Europe. First sailings began on 19 September, joining AE15 and AE19, according to gCaptain. Maersk called the Suez route “the fastest, most sustainable and most efficient way.” It also said the changes depend on “continued stability in the Red Sea and the absence of further escalation.”
Shippers were uneasy even then. James Hookham, director of the Global Shippers’ Forum, told Seatrade Maritime: “I am shocked by this announcement, in the apparent absence of any reassurances.” Hapag-Lloyd said most of its services were still going round the Cape.
The Houthi line at the time was that the Red Sea was safe for everyone except Saudi vessels. Seatrade Maritime noted it was unclear how the group viewed container ships calling at Saudi ports, naming the AE15’s Jeddah call.
That question is now sharper. Egypt has just said it may fight for Riyadh, the Houthis call that a declaration of war, and ground fighting has reached the approaches to Bab el-Mandeb.
What happened last time, and what insurers did
The pattern from this summer is a useful guide.
On 20 July the Houthis declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported.
War-risk premiums moved within ten days. These are extra insurance charges a shipowner pays for each voyage into a declared war zone, usually quoted as a percentage of the ship’s value. Reuters, via Insurance Journal, reported on 30 July that premiums for Saudi ports north of Jizan, including Jeddah and Yanbu, “have jumped in the past 24 hours to 1% from 0.25% earlier this week.” Cover for southern Red Sea transits rose to between 1% and 2% of ship value, from 0.3%.
Because the charge is a share of the ship’s value, even one percentage point is a large bill on a big container ship. Carriers pass that on as surcharges, usually with little notice.
There is also a longer lesson. When carriers left the Red Sea in late 2023, Jeddah lost 300,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard container measure) to Jebel Ali in eight months, according to a Container News analysis. Cargo that has moved to another hub is slow to come back.
What this means for forwarders
Our read is that the risk is now two-sided for anyone shipping into Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf side is already squeezed. Dammam and the east coast depend on Hormuz, and Hormuz is close to shut. The Red Sea side, through Jeddah, has been the workaround. If Jeddah calls get dearer or less reliable, there is no easy third door.
Practical steps we would take now:
- Put a war-risk surcharge clause in Saudi-bound quotes. Carriers can add these fast, and fixed-price deals leave you holding the cost.
- Check which of your Asia-Europe and Asia-Med bookings are on Gemini’s Suez loops. If carriers switch back to the Cape, expect transit times to stretch by around two weeks again and a scramble for space.
- For urgent Saudi cargo, line up air options early. Air freight is the release valve when ocean routing is in doubt, and missile alerts over Riyadh put that capacity at risk too.
- Warn customers now. A delay explained in advance is far easier to manage than one explained after the vessel is diverted.
Watch three signals. First, any carrier advisory naming Jeddah or Bab el-Mandeb. Second, Lloyd’s market war-risk quotes for Saudi Red Sea ports. Third, whether the ground fighting around Mocha moves north along the coast.
Our prediction
These are our calls.
At sea: if Saudi Arabia launches a ground offensive against the Houthis, we expect at least one major container carrier to pause or drop a Jeddah call by early December. The fighting reported near Bab el-Mandeb on 27 October, and the Houthi reading of Egypt’s vote as a declaration of war, make that escalation path more likely, not less.
In the air: we expect King Khalid International in Riyadh to stay on restricted, prior-permission operations, with no European belly capacity (cargo carried in the hold of passenger planes) back, until at least mid-November. Over the four weeks to mid-November, we expect Saudi-bound air rates via Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dammam to rise as freight squeezes through fewer gateways.
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