Houthi rebels, an Iran-aligned movement from Yemen, seized the port of Mokha in the country's southwest from the Yemeni government on Thursday (10). Saudi Arabia, which backs the government in the civil war, answered with airstrikes in Taiz province, where the city sits, and a conflict frozen since 2022 has widened again. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 6.3% to close at US$ 107.63, its highest level since May, according to news outlet G1, with input from the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The offensive matters because Mokha sits a short distance from the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a passage roughly 100 kilometers long and 30 wide between Yemen and Djibouti that links the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. The strait is part of the main shipping route between Asia and Europe, through the Suez Canal, and became essential for Saudi oil after the war between the United States and Iran cut traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, until then the center of the crisis. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the Red Sea port of Yanbu had been shipping up to 70% of Saudi output, and the Houthis have tried since July to impose an embargo on cargos leaving it.
For Brazil, the effect shows up at the pump. Brent traded below US$ 72 in early July and has now gained more than 49%. On Wednesday (9), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the Workers' Party, signed a decree raising the gasoline subsidy from R$ 0.44 to R$ 0.63 per liter, zeroed federal taxes on hydrous ethanol and authorized, through a provisional measure with the force of law, a R$ 1 per liter diesel subsidy on top of R$ 1.12 in place until September 26. Data from Brazil's National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), the country's fuel regulator, show gasoline averaging R$ 6.51 and diesel R$ 6.88 per liter in the week ended September 5.
The interests at stake
On the regional board, Saudi Arabia, the world's second largest oil producer, lost access to Hormuz and depends on the Red Sea outlet, the very corridor now threatened by the Houthis. Iran backs the group and competes with Riyadh for influence in Yemen, where the rebels took the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. Folha notes, though, that even an unlikely deal between Washington and Tehran would not end the problem, because the Houthis follow their own agenda. In the United States, President Donald Trump faces the impact of costlier oil on inflation two months before the November midterm elections that will decide the makeup of Congress; on Wednesday he said prices are unlikely to fall before the vote, one day after saying he expects the conflict to end soon after the elections.
The escalation in Yemen began in July, when government forces backed by Saudi Arabia started blockading the airspace over Sanaa, breaking an informal truce in place since 2022. Beyond threatening Saudi ships, the Houthis have stepped up attacks on the kingdom's energy infrastructure, according to G1. With two chokepoints at risk, Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, markets are now pricing a tighter global supply, and the focus of the oil crisis has shifted from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.