WTI futures have hit $100 today after the raging war in Yemen affected Saudi Arabia’s crude-oil refining capabilities. The Houthis began attacks on Saudi Arabia last month with Saudi Arabia responded with air-strikes and military operations.
The Saudi military operations with the Yemeni government have had several successes, with Yemeni troops occupying positions in Al-Jawf — including Al-Yatma and the Labanat military camp — and pressing Houthi lines in Marib, Al-Bayda and parts of Taiz as officials talk of a campaign to retake Sana’a. Footage of Yemeni government-affiliated soldiers has circulated online showing them celebrating those inland gains. On the other hand, the Houthis have captured the Yemeni port-city of Mocha (footage also below), giving them a strategic enclave from which they can disrupt oil shipping and squeeze the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern gate of the Red Sea.
Mocha fell todday after Tareq Saleh’s National Resistance Forces, who had held the coffee port and its western-coast HQ, pulled back south toward Dhubab and Perim to regroup. Houthi units also took Hays, Al-Khawkhah and the Khalid ibn al-Walid camp, completing a sweep of much of southern Hodeidah and putting them closer to the Hanish islands. Saudi Arabia responded with airstrikes across Taiz, Hodeidah, Marib, Al-Jawf and Saada after Houthi drones and missiles hit Abha, Jazan, Najran and Khamis Mushait, wounding 73 and briefly shutting southern energy sites.
More than 20,000 people have been displaced since late August. From Mocha the Houthis sit about 70 km from the narrowest stretch of Bab el-Mandeb — a second chokepoint on the oil and container route that already faces tanker attacks in the Gulf.
Meanwhile, war in the Persian Gulf is rising up again as Iran keeps striking oil tankers and the US keeps responding with attacks on IRGC targets. Aroudn ten oil-tankers were struck by the IRGC this week. US forces also destroyed several Iranian oil tankers after ballistic-missiles targeted a US Navy ship. The Iranian regime says it will escalate if US strikes on its territory continue while President Donald Trump has signalled that the fight is unlikely to end before the November midterms.
Newsroom
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