The significance of guarding the Red Sea

livemint.com:

Oil and natural gas prices have started rising as traders bet on the continuation of Houthi attacks disrupting shipping in the Red Sea. The Yemen-based rebel formation, backed by Iran, has been attacking shipping along this critical region with suicide drones, missiles and rockets since the Gaza War. This is part of a strategy to impose a naval blockade of Israel, since the Houthis are allies of Hamas due to their strong connections with Iran.

Many major shipping firms such as the Mediterranean Shipping Company, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and BP have started diverting vessels away from the Red Sea. Indeed, traffic around the Cape of Good Hope has risen by 67% since the attacks started while traffic via the Suez Canal has dropped 28% because the Suez Canal links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. It takes an extra 10-14 days sailing time for a cargo ship on the Asia-Europe run to go up and down the entire length of Africa rather than through the Suez Canal via the Red Sea.

So, this adds considerably to shipping costs. Under normal circumstances, the Red Sea route handles around 12% of all global trade, and roughly a third of the container trade. Even more alarmingly, the Houthi interdiction has the potential to badly disrupt energy supplies since a large proportion of the world’s oil and natural gas is evacuated out through regions targeted by the Houthi.

Unlike with other commodities, which can use alternate routes albeit at high cost, it is not possible for tankers out of the Arab Peninsula to easily avoid the red zone. If the Houthi actions against shipping cannot be stopped, there will be disruptions to global energy supplies quite apart from high costs for global shipping. In addition, protests in Libya have shut down the