Bab el-Mandeb transits fall to 11 vessels on Sunday, the lowest in months, Kpler data show

According to Reuters, shipping data from cargo-tracking firm Kpler released on Monday, 27 July 2026 (5 Mordad 1405), show that ship traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait fell on Sunday, 26 July, after Yemen's Ansarullah attacked Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast. Just 11 commodity vessels passed through the strait on Sunday, the lowest level in months.

Seven of those vessels were oil tankers, three of them entering the Red Sea: two very large crude carriers (VLCCs) heading to the port of Yanbu to load Saudi crude, and one Russian-linked ship. The four vessels that exited the Red Sea on Sunday were the Hong Kong-flagged VLCC New Explorer carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi and Emirati crude for Ningbo port in eastern China, a tanker carrying 1 million barrels of Russian crude for China, and a tanker with about 750,000 barrels of Saudi crude bound for Pakistan.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz also stayed low despite the pause in US and Iranian strikes, with fewer than 10 commodity vessels transiting daily over the weekend. Seven vessels passed on Sunday, 26 July, including three Iranian-linked oil products tankers, while on Saturday, 25 July, only three vessels transited, all with their transponders switched off.