Shipping traffic slows in Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb after Houthis say they attacked Saudi tanker

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb plunged on Wednesday, with just three vessels crossing the key waterways as Houthi attacks and the Iran war disrupted regional trade.

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the key maritime chokepoints in the Gulf, reduced significantly on Wednesday from the previous day, shipping data showed.

Just two vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz, including a Panama-flagged coal-laden carrier entering the waterway and another commodity Marshall Islands-flagged vessel exiting, shipping data from Kpler showed, down from eight vessels a day earlier.

Roughly 130 to 140 ships would typically transit the waterway before the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28, and Iran responded by closing the strait.

In the Bab el-Mandeb, only one commodity vessel, a Bahamas-flagged dry bulk carrier, crossed the strait on Wednesday, Kpler data showed, down from 20 the previous day.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Wednesday they had launched a missile attack on a Saudi oil tanker off the coast of the kingdom's Red Sea port city of Yanbu and another missile attack on a Saudi oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

Houthis blocked Saudi Arabia from Red Sea

There was no confirmation from Saudi Arabia on either incident.

The Houthis have imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea since last month in response to what they described as a Saudi siege on Yemen, an allegation Riyadh has denied.