Oil News: Brent Eyes $100 as Two Chokepoints Threaten Oil Supply
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Key Points:
- Brent rose toward $100 as attacks on Saudi tankers turned the oil rally into a two-chokepoint supply trade.
- Hormuz is impaired and Bab el-Mandeb is under threat, leaving Saudi crude with no secure export workaround.
- Goldman estimates 4 million barrels per day through Bab el-Mandeb could be difficult to reroute if both routes close.
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The oil market went from one chokepoint problem to two on Thursday and neither one is getting better. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said no ship enters or leaves the Strait of Hormuz without their coordination. That alone would be enough to keep crude bid. But the Houthis hit two Saudi tankers near Bab el-Mandeb the same day, trying to enforce the blockade they declared earlier this week, and that changed the math. Saudi Arabia had a workaround when Hormuz went bad. Yanbu and the Red Sea gave the kingdom a way to ship crude west instead of east through the Gulf. That workaround is now under fire and the market is starting to price what it looks like when the world’s biggest swing producer cannot get barrels out through either route.