The Red Sea Monitor

Tracking maritime security, naval movements, and chokepoint geopolitics in the Red Sea

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

From Port Sudan to Bab el-Mandeb, Tehran is rebuilding influence through proxies, drones, and overland routes turning chaos into strategic depth.'

Key weapons: Ababil-2, Mohajer-6, Shahed-136 components.

This network won’t be broken by maritime patrols alone. Ending the civil wars in Sudan & Yemen is the true complexity.

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

THE RED SEA has four separate crises running simultaneously. Most coverage treats them as separate problems.

The CFR just published four analysts from four different countries on the same corridor. Their conclusions don't overlap. That is the story.

The ISS frames it as a governance failure, African littoral states treated as strategic buffers rather than principal stakeholders, with Middle Eastern financial bailouts exchanged for military real estate, consolidating local regimes rather than building stability.

The Gulf Research Center frames it as a infrastructure problem submarine cables, ports and digital sovereignty as understated vulnerabilities that maritime security frameworks consistently ignore.

Chatham House frames it as a contradiction problem regional powers simultaneously backing opposing warring parties, with Western states turning a blind eye due to commercial relationships.

Four think tanks. Four frameworks. Zero consensus on what the Red Sea corridor actually is or who is responsible for stabilising it.

That absence of consensus is not an analytical failure. It is an accurate description of a waterway that nobody governs, everybody needs and no single actor controls.

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

The Hormuz Squeeze is redrawing the oil map for good.

Saudi, UAE, and Iraq are pouring billions into pipelines, rail corridors, storage hubs, and alternative export terminals. What used to be total dependence on a single chokepoint is becoming a diversified, hardened network. WSJ has the details. For years the Red Sea taught everyone the cost of Bab el-Mandeb disruption Cape reroutes, insurance spikes, lost time.

Now the Persian Gulf is learning the same lesson under Iranian pressure. Hormuz once moved ~20% of global oil. That era is ending.

- Saudi’s East-West Petroline to Yanbu is scaling fast.

- UAE is accelerating the second ADCOP line to Fujairah, target 2027.

- Iraq is pushing southern alternatives as its Gulf outlets remain vulnerable.

This isn’t temporary hedging. It is structural decoupling from the narrow strait. Expect faster investment in overland routes, Red Sea terminals, and Gulf of Oman infrastructure.

Winners: exporters building redundancy and Red Sea ports like Yanbu.

Losers: anyone still betting the entire map on one chokepoint

Chokepoints get weaponized. Bab el-Mandeb proved it. Hormuz is proving it again. The smart players are building the bypasses in real time.

https://t.co/RMLCrbyYs5

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

@M8460299155417 Yes there will likely be a shortage of crude available for immediate shipment in the first 4 to 8 weeks after reopening. Even with unimpeded transit, the 10 million bpd of shut-in Gulf production won’t restart overnight.

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

More oil is slipping out of the Strait of Hormuz BUT don't call it normal.

Traders are going dark: AIS switched off, stealth transits rising, with ~65% of outbound laden tankers in "dark mode" in May per Vortexa. Gulf floating storage is drawing down faster (now ~710k bpd depletion since early May), freeing some barrels for Asian buyers desperate for supply.

Yet traffic remains a fraction of pre-war levels. No full return of empty tankers. Insurance still screams risk. Producers won't restart shut-in fields without reliable export certainty. And Tehran wants to keep control tolls, bilateral deals, Iranian-approved corridors only.

This isn't recovery. It's the new opaque reality: fragmented flows, higher costs, persistent vulnerability. One chokepoint squeeze (Hormuz) already reshaped markets. Pair it with Red Sea/Bab al-Mandab pressure from proxies and the map tightens further.

Gulf energy reroutes, premiums spike, and strategic leverage stays with those who can disrupt the straits that matter. Markets are pricing marginal relief. Stakeholders should price enduring risk.

https://t.co/Yg9LEOIMLR

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

PROJECT FREEDOM lasted 48 hours. The quiet version has no name, no press conference and no announcement.

Ships are turning off transponders and hugging the Omani coast to avoid Iranian mines with US military assistance available if needed.

That is not just a tactical adjustment. It is an acknowledgement that Iran's position on the strait has forced Washington to work around it rather than through it.

Freedom of navigation enforced through press releases lasts 48 hours. Freedom of navigation enforced through dark transits along the Omani coast is not freedom of navigation.

Rubio said the strait does not belong to Iran. The US Navy is currently behaving as if it does.

https://t.co/UlmcpQ6lAY

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

Iran and its proxies aren't done squeezing the map.

After weaponizing Hormuz, Tehran and its proxies are now eyeing Bab al-Mandab as the next front. Iranian and Houthi voices are openly signaling new disruptions at the Red Sea’s southern gate amid stalled US-Iran talks and Israel’s Lebanon campaign.

Bab al-Mandab already delivered: reroutes around the Cape, soaring insurance, and billions in global trade losses. Pair that with Hormuz pressure and you get two chokepoints under one axis — forcing Gulf energy to take the long way again. Iran doesn’t need to sink ships.

The threat alone spikes oil, reroutes fleets, and proves who controls the straits that matter.

For Red Sea stakeholders: this isn’t rhetoric anymore. Diversify, harden routes, and maintain presence. The map is tightening. Bab al-Mandab is next.

https://t.co/lDyUBYloC3

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

The Horn of Africa is not sliding into chaos. It is organizing into a strict, zero-sum hierarchy.

The newly crystallized Egypt-Eritrea axis proves that transactional security is replacing old multilateral frameworks. Egypt gets a maritime platform to squeeze Ethiopia over the GERD; Eritrea gets infrastructure investment, trade diversification, and a permanent exit from diplomatic isolation.

Notice the synchronized moves: Cairo is simultaneously backing Mogadishu, reinforcing Port Sudan, and anchoring in Asmara.

This isn't neighborhood diplomacy. It is a containment ring.

https://t.co/PLoVmrGuqh

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

RUSSIA is making more money from oil exports than at any point in two and a half years. It has not fired a single shot in the Middle East.

€733 million per day in April. Up 4% month on month. The highest revenues since late 2023 — achieved on lower export volumes because the price is doing the work.

The EU price cap on Russian oil sits at $44.10 per barrel. Brent is at $141. The cap is not a cap anymore. It is a formality with a number attached to it.

Now Brussels is considering freezing it entirely — acknowledging what the market already knows. The mechanism designed to limit Russian war revenues has been rendered irrelevant by a war Russia had nothing to do with starting.

Iran closed Hormuz. Saudi crude rerouted. Global oil prices surged. Russia collected the windfall.

The most effective transfer of wealth to Moscow since the 2022 invasion was engineered by a conflict in the Persian Gulf. Nobody in Washington or Brussels designed that outcome. But Moscow is cashing the cheque regardless.

[Daniel Lacalle @dlacalle_IA]

The European Union is considering a temporary freeze to its price cap on Russian oil as the war in the Middle East continues into a fourth month. The current price threshold is $44.10 per barrel. Bloomberg.

In April 2026, Russia’s fossil fuel export revenues rose 4% month-on-month, climbing to EUR 733 mn per day — the highest revenues in two and a half years, despite a 7% drop in export volumes. CREA

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

THE HOUTHIS and al-Shabaab have been sharing weapons, training and Iranian technology since 2015. Most analysts treat them as separate problems.

They are not.

The UN documented it in 2025 — Houthis trading advanced weapons and skills for al-Shabaab's smuggling routes and piracy infrastructure in the Gulf of Aden. Not transactional. Strategic. A Houthi play for influence across the entire southern corridor. Fortune

The sectarian dimension makes this more alarming, not less. Shia Houthis. Sunni al-Shabaab. They previously fought each other's allies. The relationship exists anyway because the corridor is valuable enough to override ideology.

Houthis bring Iranian weapons technology and military training. Al-Shabaab brings established smuggling routes, piracy infrastructure and coastal access on the African shore. Together they cover both sides of Bab al-Mandeb simultaneously.

Every policy response has targeted them separately. The relationship has grown anyway.

The corridor connecting Bab al-Mandeb to Port Sudan runs through waters both groups now operate in. That is the part nobody is connecting.

https://t.co/njxqhkNzGW

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

A major shift in the dynamics of global shipbuilding - a must watch.

[Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) 🚢⚓🐪🚒🏴‍☠️ @mercoglianos]

China Now Controls 70% of Shipbuilding: Can the U.S. Make a Comeback?

1⃣The History of the Shift in Shipbuilding
2⃣The BRS Report Data
3⃣Criteria for Shipbuilding Success
4⃣The U.S. Situation
5⃣The Future

Video: https://t.co/6PDq708O8u

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

The gap between what Iran is offering and what the US needs is not a drafting problem. It is a strategic incompatibility dressed in diplomatic language.
Hormuz under Iranian arrangements is not an open strait.

It is the PGSA with a ceasefire announcement stapled to it.

The market is pricing a deal. It should be pricing a doctrine.

https://t.co/nRN52FUG2D

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

IRAN just made its position on Hormuz explicit. Control over the strait is a strategic necessity. Not a wartime measure. Not a negotiating chip. A permanent feature of Iranian deterrence.

Every analyst is covering the ceasefire. Nobody is covering what Iran just said about what comes after it. 🧵

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

Meanwhile satellite imagery shows Iran reconstituting missile capabilities at Yazd since the April ceasefire began. Iranian state media is already framing the war as a military victory to be converted into political gains.

Iran is not negotiating from weakness. It is negotiating from a position it believes it won.

Its opening offer reflects exactly that belief.

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

ETHIOPIA just used the word "encirclement" officially. Not analysts. Not commentators. The Ethiopian government itself.

That language matters. When a government of 130 million people formally accuses a neighbor of strategic encirclement, it is not a diplomatic complaint. It is a warning that escalation is on the horizon.

Egypt has now brokered a US-Eritrea rapprochement drawing Washington's diplomatic weight into its regional campaign. For the Trump administration, the interest in normalising with Eritrea is anchored in Hormuz necessity. With ceasefire talks in limbo and Houthi attacks on Bab al-Mandeb a live risk, Washington is reaching for whatever leverage it can find.

The consequence is that the US is now being pulled into the Egypt-Ethiopia rivalry, not by design but by geography. Eritrea sits at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Whoever controls Eritrea controls the approach to Bab al-Mandeb. Washington needs that access. Egypt is offering to broker it.

https://t.co/oTystRpVSA