Saudi Arabia's Red Sea detour now runs past a Houthi-held island in the Bab al-Mandeb

The band cryptobriefing.com quotes, near $100 to $105 a barrel, is $5 wide, and $5 is about 4.8% of the top of it ^[8][14]. The same report gives no freight rate and no war-risk premium, and it describes no interrupted cargo ^[16]. So the price is a bet on probability, and there is nothing on the record to check it against.

The 10-12% share of global seaborne trade attributed to the Bab al-Mandeb is loose in its own terms: the top of the range is 20% above the bottom ^[2][15]. It is also a figure for the waterway itself. Houthi forces have been attacking Red Sea shipping since late 2023 ^[11], and the report does not say how much of that 10-12% still transits ^[16].

The rerouting is the part that costs money. Hormuz has faced effective closures from Iranian blockades following US and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier in 2026, according to cryptobriefing.com ^[9]. Saudi export cargoes have been going out through Red Sea ports instead ^[10]. A cargo leaving those ports for Europe or Asia through Suez passes Perim. The island splits the strait into two channels, so whoever holds it can monitor and potentially threaten every vessel in that transit ^[5].

The report calls physical control of the island a qualitative escalation, from harassment to territorial dominance of the waterway ^[13]. The drone and missile attacks came from the Yemeni coast ^[12], and the withdrawing troops gave up Dhubab too, coastline that sits roughly 70 to 80 kilometres from the strait ^[4]. On this evidence the new element is standing presence and observation. It could run two other ways. A garrison on a volcanic outcrop in a contested strait is easier to strike than a mobile launcher inland. Or the position is never used at all, and works as leverage on every owner sending a ship through Suez.

Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy, said on September 10 that the situation is entering "a new and more dangerous phase" ^[6]. He said it before the advance on Perim was confirmed ^[7].

The test is throughput. If cargoes keep leaving Red Sea ports on schedule and crude gives back the move to its mid-May level with Houthi forces still on the island ^[8], then $105 bought a change in who watches the strait. If loadings slip, the numbers that settle it are missed cargoes and tonnes, and this report supplies neither ^[16].