The Red Sea<\/p>\n
Compounding these concerns is the emergence of another major energy chokepoint.<\/p>\n
In June, the market could focus entirely on Hormuz, but now the conflict has expanded to the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis last month declared a blockade on Saudi exports. <\/p>\n
The Red Sea emerged as a critical alternative export route after the outbreak of the war, particularly for Saudi Arabia. It was able to continue exporting more than four million barrels per day, around 60 per cent of its pre-war flows, even as Hormuz was almost entirely shuttered.<\/p>\n
The Houthi blockade, coupled with recent attacks on Saudi infrastructure, has significantly disrupted those exports. Whether the Houthis agree to lift their blockade as part of a broader agreement with Iran remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Even if they do, the risk that they could reinstate it will hang over the region, constraining US negotiators and complicating the outlook for Middle East producers. Gulf countries \u2013 and much of the rest of the world \u2013 are understandably desperate for a lasting settlement in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Most will welcome any deal that reduces the immediate risks facing energy markets.<\/p>\n
But any interim agreement will leave the issues that sparked the war unresolved \u2013 while also leaving Tehran \u2013 an unpredictable, aggressive actor \u2013 even more emboldened.<\/p>\n
Perhaps \u201cthis time is different,\u201d but not necessarily in the way traders would like.<\/p>\n
(Ron Bousso; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Anna Szymanski)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sea Compounding these concerns is the emergence of another major energy chokepoint. In June, the market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[11215,34,1738,1737,181,39,1000,50,101,51],"class_list":["post-238650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-bab-el-mandeb-strait","tag-iran","tag-mena","tag-north-america","tag-oman","tag-persian-gulf","tag-red-sea","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117049314960078454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}