A Saudi-owned very large crude carrier has been struck off Yanbu in the northern Red Sea, extending the Houthi campaign against Saudi shipping to one of the kingdom's most important alternative crude export routes.

The 320,926 dwt Amzan was hit approximately 63 nautical miles west of Yanbu on August 24. UK Maritime Trade Operations, which monitors merchant shipping in the region, reported that an unknown projectile struck the tanker, causing a fire on the main deck. All crew were reported safe and no pollution was observed.

Bahri, the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia and owner of the Saudi-flagged, 2014-built vessel, confirmed the incident and said it was coordinating with the relevant authorities. Bahri operates one of the world's largest VLCC fleets, making its tankers a mainstay of the kingdom's crude export logistics.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree subsequently claimed the ship had been targeted with a ballistic missile as part of the group's declared blockade of Saudi-linked shipping. The weapon type has not been independently confirmed. Houthi attacks on merchant shipping since late 2023 have been concentrated in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, near the Bab al-Mandab strait through which Red Sea traffic to and from Suez must pass, prompting widespread diversions around the Cape of Good Hope and lifting war-risk insurance costs for vessels that kept transiting the waterway.

Yanbu, roughly 1,000 km north of the Houthis' main operating areas in Yemen and the Red Sea terminus of Saudi Arabia's East-West crude pipeline — the roughly 1,200 km Petroline system built to move crude from the kingdom's eastern fields to its west coast, with a nameplate capacity of around 5m barrels per day — has become a crucial safety valve for Saudi exports since disruption in the Strait of Hormuz intensified. Yanbu crude exports had surged to around 3.8m barrels per day recently as Riyadh diverted barrels away from Hormuz.

Since the Houthis declared their ban on Saudi port traffic on July 20, tanker calls at Yanbu have fallen by more than a third. Saudi Arabia has responded by rerouting some VLCC cargoes north through the Red Sea, including partial discharge operations at Egypt's Ain Sukhna, the Sumed pipeline's Gulf of Suez terminus, before ships transit Suez and reload via the line at Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean. Fully laden VLCCs are too large for the Suez Canal, which is why the roughly 2.5m barrels-per-day Sumed system has long served as the canal's crude workaround.

Source: Splash247