Red Sea shipping after the Houthi attacks: traffic halved, and the gas stopped
Oil flows through Bab el-Mandeb fell by more than half. Liquefied natural gas through the strait fell to zero and has stayed there. One country's traffic barely moved, and the US Energy Information Administration says why in a single sentence.
Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea began in November 2023. What happened to the traffic afterwards is not a matter of opinion. It is in a table.
Traffic halved in a single year
Bab el-Mandeb is the strait between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Everything moving between the Suez Canal and Asia passes through it.
| Year | Oil flows through Bab el-Mandeb, million barrels a day |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 5.7 |
| 2021 | 6.0 |
| 2022 | 8.0 |
| 2023 | 9.3 |
| 2024 | 4.1 |
| First half 2025 | 4.2 |
Measured US Energy Information Administration. The attacks began in November 2023, at the top of that column.
From 9.3 to 4.1 million barrels a day in a single year. The Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline, which sit on the same route, went from 8.8 to 4.8 over the same period. The EIA's own description is that both volumes were approximately half of the 2023 flows.
LNG went to zero and stayed there
Oil traffic halved. Liquefied natural gas did something else.
| Year | LNG through Bab el-Mandeb, billion cubic feet a day |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 3.8 |
| 2021 | 4.7 |
| 2022 | 4.6 |
| 2023 | 4.2 |
| 2024 | 0.0 |
| First half 2025 | 0.0 |
Measured US Energy Information Administration.
A route that carried more than four billion cubic feet a day for four consecutive years now carries nothing. It did not decline. It closed. And it has stayed closed through eighteen months of subsequent data.
The ships went round Africa
Around Africa. Traffic past the Cape of Good Hope rose from 6.1 million barrels a day in 2022 to 9.3 in 2024, an increase of three million barrels a day. LNG around the Cape went from 1.5 billion cubic feet a day in 2022 to 7.8 in 2024.
That detour is not free and the EIA quantifies it. Closure of the Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline, it states, would require tankers to divert around the Cape, “adding approximately 15 days to transit from the Arabian Sea to Europe.”
Fifteen extra days per voyage, on three million barrels a day of rerouted oil, sustained across two years. Every one of those days is a ship burning fuel, a crew being paid, and a cargo sitting on the water instead of arriving.
One country's traffic did not change
Everybody else's volumes halved. Russia's did not.
In the first half of 2025, Russia moved more crude oil and condensate through the Suez Canal and Bab el-Mandeb than any other country. The EIA states the reason plainly: “Russian ships have rarely been targeted by Houthi militia attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb, and volumes of Russian crude oil and condensate passing through the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb in 2024 and 1H25 were little changed from 2023.”
Measured and Confirmed, US Energy Information Administration.
Saudi crude moving through Bab el-Mandeb fell by more than half between 2023 and 2024. Russian crude through the same water was little changed. Most of it was going to Asia, mainly India, after the shift in Russian export destinations that followed February 2022.
A blockade that halves the traffic of most exporters and leaves one exporter's volumes intact is a different kind of event from a blockade. We are reporting what the flows and the EIA's own sentence say. We are not characterising anyone's intent, and nothing in the source addresses it.
What we have not measured
This section explains a mechanism. It contains no measurement.
Fifteen extra days at sea reaches a household through freight cost. A ship that spends longer on each voyage completes fewer voyages a year, burns more fuel per cargo, and ties up capital for longer, and those costs sit inside the delivered price of everything that arrives by sea. For Europe specifically, an LNG route that closed entirely has to be replaced from somewhere, and replacement cargoes travel further.
We have not obtained freight rate data, war-risk premium data, or LNG landed-cost data for any of this. The EIA has published its own analysis of shipping times and freight rates following the Red Sea attacks, and we have not yet read it. Until we do, the step from fifteen days to your grocery bill is an explanation. It is not a finding.
The dates, in order
Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea began in November 2023. Bab el-Mandeb oil flows for the full year 2023 were 9.3 million barrels a day. For 2024 they were 4.1. LNG flows were 4.2 billion cubic feet a day in 2023 and 0.0 in 2024. Cape of Good Hope traffic rose by three million barrels a day across the same span.
Those are five measured quantities and their periods. The sequence is the story and the reader can draw the line without our help.
One limit on all of the above, stated plainly. The most recent period the EIA has published is the first half of 2025. Today is August 2026. Every figure in this article is at least a year old, and we have no measurement of what Bab el-Mandeb traffic is doing now. If the strait has reopened to LNG since, this data would not show it.
Sources and verification
The address below is printed in full so you can copy it and check us. We do not link out.
All flow volumes. US Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, last updated 3 March 2026, based on Vortexa tanker tracking and EIA analysis. US federal work, public domain. Read 4 August 2026. The page returns nothing but navigation to an automated request and has to be rendered in a browser, which is worth knowing if you go to check these figures yourself. Measured https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/special-topics/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints
The quoted statements on Russian vessels and on the fifteen-day Cape diversion are the EIA's own words from that document. Confirmed
Not measured here. Freight rates, war-risk insurance premiums, LNG landed costs, any figure later than the first half of 2025, and the share of increased shipping cost that reaches a retail price.