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VLCC takes Cape route to avoid Red Sea

  • Spanish Market: Crude oil, Freight
  • 24/07/26

South Korea's SK Energy has booked the VLCC DHT Stallion to carry Saudi crude from Egypt to South Korea around the Cape of Good Hope, avoiding the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb strait after Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militant group said it would target Saudi-linked shipping in the area, market participants said.

The cargo will load at Sidi Kerir on Egypt's Mediterranean coast after being pumped through the Sumed pipeline from Ain Sukhna on Egypt's Red Sea coast. The Bab el-Mandeb strait, at the southern end of the Red Sea off Yemen, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

Saudi Arabia has continued to shuttle crude to Ain Sukhna for delivery into Sumed, despite the heightened risk to shipping in the Red Sea. The pipeline allows Saudi crude to move across Egypt to the Mediterranean, where it can be loaded at Sidi Kerir without the onward voyage needing to pass through the Red Sea.

A Saudi Red Sea loading to northeast Asia would usually sail south through Bab el-Mandeb. But the DHT Stallion will instead sail west from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and around southern Africa, avoiding the strait and the area where the Houthis have threatened Saudi-linked shipping.

SK Energy fixed the DHT Stallion at a lumpsum of $17mn-18.5mn, market participants said. That range is comparable with recent Yanbu-northeast Asia rates through Bab el-Mandeb, but the Cape route adds around 30 days to the voyage and reduces daily earnings.

Owners are still willing to take the longer voyage because it avoids the higher risk linked to Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb transits.

Yanbu-northeast Asia rates through Bab el-Mandeb have risen sharply as owners price additional war risk insurance premiums into spot deals. The Cape of Good Hope route avoids that risk area, so owners do not need to build the same premium into the fixture.

The DHT Stallion is already north of the Suez Canal and is expected to ballast from the UK Continent after discharging its current cargo in Rotterdam. That ballast leg would also avoid the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb.

The fixture comes as US president Donald Trump has stepped up threats against Iran after the Houthis said they were following through on their vow to target Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.

"The US will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran," Trump said in a social media post on 23 July. He threatened "major military punishment" against Iran and the Houthis.


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