Energy markets have repeatedly shown how quickly conflict in the Middle East can affect fuel prices, shipping costs and supply planning far beyond the region. In Saudi Arabia, renewed attention has turned to Houthi attacks on Aramco facilities and to warnings that another maritime chokepoint, the Bab el-Mandeb, could compound risks already tied to the Strait of Hormuz. For U.S. households heading into a midterm-election season, the issue is not only oil production but also the routes tankers use to move crude and refined products to world markets.
Houthi strikes on Saudi facilities put oil infrastructure back in focus
On March 25, 2022, Yemen’s Houthi movement launched missiles and drones at Saudi energy and utility sites, including Saudi Aramco facilities, and the Saudi-led coalition said the attacks caused fires and injuries. The Associated Press reported that 73 people were wounded in the broader wave of attacks, while Reuters reported that a petroleum products distribution station in Jeddah was hit and two storage tanks caught fire. The attacks also targeted sites in Najran, Abha and Khamis Mushait, according to those reports.
The Jeddah strike drew wider attention because it hit a major commercial city and came near the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend. Reuters reported at the time that the Saudi Energy Ministry said the kingdom would not bear responsibility for shortages in global oil supplies if Houthi attacks on its facilities continued. That warning linked the security incident directly to international energy markets rather than treating it only as a local military development.
The Bab el-Mandeb risk has become part of the same conversation because it is one of the world’s major oil transit chokepoints. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said most Persian Gulf petroleum exports moving toward the Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline pass through both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb, making simultaneous pressure on both routes especially significant.
For Saudi Arabia, the confirmed impact in the March 2022 attacks was damage to fuel storage infrastructure in Jeddah and injuries across multiple locations, but the full operational effect on individual export flows was not publicly broken out site by site. Saudi officials publicly identified the Jeddah facility fire, and wire reports documented other targeted areas, but a comprehensive public accounting of every affected installation was not released at the time.
What is clear is that Saudi Arabia occupies a central position in any disruption scenario because its crude can move by sea through the Gulf and also by pipeline across the kingdom to the Red Sea. The EIA said in a 2025 analysis that disruptions around the Bab el-Mandeb in 2024 led Aramco to shift some seaborne crude away from the Strait of Hormuz by sending oil over land through its East-West pipeline to Red Sea ports. That shows Saudi infrastructure can provide alternatives, but only up to a point if multiple routes face strain.
For U.S. consumers, that matters because supply-chain disruptions abroad can feed into gasoline and diesel costs at home even when there is no direct physical shortage in the United States. Shipping detours, insurance costs and timing delays can all raise delivered energy prices, according to U.S. and international trade agencies tracking Red Sea disruptions.
The underlying reason this issue carries weight is that the global oil system depends on a small number of high-volume maritime passages. EIA data identifies the Strait of Hormuz as the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint by volume, while also describing the Bab el-Mandeb as a strategic route for crude and petroleum products headed toward Europe, the United States and Asia. When either route is disrupted, tankers can be delayed or rerouted; when both are threatened, the market impact can widen quickly.
Trade agencies have documented the broader economic effect of Red Sea insecurity. UN Trade and Development said in 2024 that attacks in the Red Sea were disrupting shipping networks and adding costs as vessels rerouted around southern Africa. The OECD likewise reported that roughly 15% of 2023 global maritime trade transited the Red Sea corridor through the Bab el-Mandeb and Suez system, underscoring how security threats there can reach well beyond oil alone.
What it means for residents and consumers is straightforward: geopolitical risk in these corridors can translate into higher transportation and energy costs, even if supplies continue moving. No official U.S. estimate ties the Saudi attacks alone to a specific future gasoline price, and no public forecast can isolate the effect of one incident with certainty. But the documented market concern remains that attacks on Saudi infrastructure, combined with threats to the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz, can tighten the margin for global energy flows at politically sensitive moments.