HORMUZ SHIPPING COLLAPSES AS TANKER ATTACKS INTENSIFY, HOUTHIS CLAIM NEW RIYADH STRIKE
October 8, 2026
Traffic through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz has fallen to its lowest level in more than two months as attacks on tankers intensify amid the continuing US-Israeli war with Iran, while Yemen’s Houthi group has claimed responsibility for a fresh ballistic missile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
Only seven commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the lowest number recorded since July 23, according to shipping data. The number increased to 10 on Wednesday but remained well below the more than 20 vessels that crossed the waterway on Sunday and Monday.
Crude oil shipments through the strait have also declined sharply. The volume fell 27 per cent from the wartime peak recorded the previous week to at least 10.1 million barrels a day, equivalent to about 74 per cent of the pre-war level. Much of the reduction was attributed to a decline in ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.
At the same time, crude exports from the Gulf of Oman coast and the Red Sea increased to around 6.7 million barrels a day, more than twice their pre-war level. The increased flows helped compensate for the reduction through Hormuz and kept overall Middle Eastern crude exports around their pre-war level.
The shipping slowdown comes as tanker attacks in the waterway reached their highest weekly level since the beginning of the Iran war. In the latest reported incident, projectiles struck a tanker around 51 nautical miles north of Qatar’s Madinat ash Shamal, with casualties reported.
Before the war began on February 28, roughly 125 large commercial vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz each day, carrying cargoes that represented around one-fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. Current traffic remains dramatically below that level, although the available figures exclude vessels that have switched off their Automatic Identification System transponders to avoid detection.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it had launched a ballistic missile attack against King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The claim came hours after Saudi Arabia reported that a midweek attack on the same airport had killed one person. Saudi authorities had not immediately confirmed the latest Houthi claim.
The combination of collapsing maritime traffic through Hormuz, intensified tanker attacks and renewed Houthi strikes on Saudi targets highlights the widening security risks surrounding energy routes across the region.
