Saudi Plan B to Avoid Hormuz Danger Isn't Much Safer
The Red Sea's Gate of Tears looks like an appealing alternative to the Persian Gulf chokepoint, but has its own dangers.
Is there a way to avoid this?
Photographer: HASAN SHIRVANI/AFP/Getty Images
After all of the incidents in the Strait of Hormuz in recent months, Saudi Arabia is understandably nervous about its dependence on using the chokepoint to ship its oil to vital overseas markets. But its plan to pump more of its crude all the way across the country and export it through the Red Sea instead may not bring it as much security as it hopes.
Two separate attacks on oil tankers in May and June just outside Hormuz – a narrow neck of water that links the Persian Gulf to the high seas – have caused costs and insurance rates to skyrocket. British-flagged vessels have shunned the strait after one was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the arrest of the supertanker Grace 1 off Gibraltar earlier this month.