# ANALYSIS: Bab el-Mandeb traffic climbs back up to 29 ships, but a third still sails dark


- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-07-31
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/bab-el-mandeb-traffic-climbs-back-up-to-29-ships-but-a-third-still-sails-dark

## Twenty-nine vessels Thursday, nineteen in, ten out

### The number that opens this dossier

According to **Reuters**, **29 commodity vessels** transited **Bab el-Mandeb** on Thursday, including **19 entries and 10 exits**. That count covers a single day, in a strategic strait where traffic swings sharply from one day to the next according to the data gathered here for this full dossier. **That number alone says nothing about a trend**; it only takes on meaning once placed beside the month's other readings.

### What the makeup of those 29 vessels reveals

**Reuters specifies that Thursday's 29 commodity vessels included several tankers**, among them two **VLCCs**, two **Suezmax** and six **Aframax** ships. These three tanker classes carry very different volumes: a **VLCC** can load several times the volume of an **Aframax**, meaning a simple vessel count doesn't automatically reflect a volume of **crude** or **gas** proportional to the number of units. A count that stops at the number of hulls tells only half of what actually moved through the strait that day. *A ship count is never complete if you ignore what those ships actually carry.*

## The month's peak still stands at 46 ships, reached on July 14

### A level not matched since

Still according to Reuters, carried by **US News**, **Bab el-Mandeb's** level has stayed below the month's peak, set at **46 vessels on July 14**. Twenty-nine ships Thursday, compared with a peak of **46** two weeks earlier, does not tell the story of a full rebound — it tells the story of a partial recovery, still far from the mid-month summit.

### Why this benchmark changes how the number reads

**Without that July 14 reference point, 29 vessels could look like good news on its own.** With it, the same figure becomes the measure of a gap that's still open: seventeen ships are still missing between the mid-month peak and Thursday's count, a gap neither Reuters nor **US** News explains in detail in the excerpts consulted here. Reporting the 29 without the 46 would have told a cleaner story, but a less honest one. *An isolated number is worth nothing without knowing what it's actually being measured against.*

## Kpler had already logged 49 confirmed crossings on July 25, a higher total

### A different source, a different day, a bigger total

Per Reuters, cited by **Middle East Eye**, **Kpler** reported that on **July 25** activity at **Bab al-Mandeb** climbed to **49 confirmed crossings**, including **five sanctioned vessels**, **11 ships part of the shadow fleet**, and **four dark transits**. That total far exceeds Thursday's **29** ships, which illustrates just how sharply maritime traffic figures in this zone fluctuate from one week — or even one day — to the next.

### What "shadow fleet" and "dark transits" actually mean

**Eleven ships classified as "shadow fleet" and four in "dark transit" out of a total of 49** means that roughly a third of confirmed crossings that day escaped standard transparent identification. A **shadow fleet** generally refers to vessels that regularly change flag, insurer, or identifier to get around international **sanctions**, while a **dark transit** refers to a ship that deliberately cuts its location signal for part of the journey. More ships moving does not automatically mean more of that movement is visible to regulators. *A traffic recovery does not automatically become a traffic under watch.*

## Twenty-five ships according to SANA, close to but not matching Reuters

### A four-ship gap on the same day

According to **SANA**, which also cites Reuters, **25 vessels carrying commodities** passed **Bab al-Mandeb on Thursday**, with **18 entries and seven exits**. That total of **25** differs from the **29** Reuters put forward for the same Thursday, a four-ship gap neither source explicitly accounts for in the excerpts consulted.

### Why a four-ship gap isn't trivial

**A gap of four ships out of roughly thirty represents nearly a 14 percent difference between two counts of the same day.** This piece does not rule on which of the two sources is more accurate: it names the discrepancy rather than arbitrarily picking a number. One possible explanation, unconfirmed by the sources, would involve different **cutoff times** for closing out a maritime "day," a detail neither **Reuters** nor **SANA** spells out in the material available. That two wires drawing on the same wire service still disagree on a headline number says something about how loosely defined a shipping "day" can be. *Two agencies citing the same reference source can still land on two different totals.*

## The National reports a 56 percent drop the preceding Sunday

### A day far weaker than the month's average

According to **The National**, only **15 commodity vessels** transited **Bab Al Mandeb on Sunday**, a **56 percent drop** from the **34 recorded on July 20**. That figure of **15** ships, well below Thursday's **29** or the **49** confirmed by Kpler on July **25**, illustrates just how volatile short-term traffic is in this zone, where a quiet day can follow a busy one with no visible gradual transition.

### What this isolated drop does not let us conclude

**A 56 percent drop over a single day does not prove a lasting collapse of traffic**, any more than the **49** crossings on July **25** proved a full return to normal. Across four reference days gathered in this dossier — **July 20** at **34** ships, **July 25** at **49**, a Sunday at **15**, and a Thursday at either **29** or **25** depending on the source — no straight-line trend emerges. Anyone trying to plot these four points on a single rising or falling line would be forcing a shape onto data that doesn't hold one. *The strait doesn't tell a linear story, it tells a string of contrasting days.*

## A Houthi-Saudi embargo cited as a factor in that Sunday drop

### What The National links to the 56 percent decline

**The National frames this 56 percent drop in the context of a "Houthis' Saudi embargo,"** without the excerpts consulted here detailing its exact scope or expected duration. This security factor, distinct from the broader tensions discussed elsewhere in this dossier, suggests several separate dynamics are acting on Bab el-Mandeb traffic at once.

### Why this factor deserves naming without over-reading it

**None of the sources gathered here precisely quantifies this embargo's share of the observed decline**, relative to other possible causes such as weather, maritime insurance, or individual shipowner decisions. A partial **embargo** can deter some captains without stopping others, depending on their cargo, flag, or contractual relationship with **insurers** carrying a higher risk tolerance. The temptation to hang an entire drop on a single named cause is real, and this piece resists it. *Naming a documented cause doesn't excuse admitting what it fails to explain on its own.*

## The Strait of Hormuz tells a parallel story, not an identical one

### Twelve ships Wednesday, up over two days

According to Reuters, **12 commodity ships** transited the **Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday**, with **six entering and six exiting**, and the number rose compared with the two preceding days. **That figure of twelve is markedly lower than the 29 or 49 ships recorded at Bab el-Mandeb** over the same period, underscoring that the two straits, often mentioned together in regional coverage, live through distinct traffic dynamics.

### Why conflating the two straits would be a mistake

**Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz share neither the same risk geography nor the same traffic figures**, even though they often appear in the same dispatches devoted to regional maritime security. Bab el-Mandeb links the **Red Sea** to the **Gulf of Aden**, off **Yemen**, while the **Strait of Hormuz** separates the **Persian Gulf** from the Arabian Sea, between **Iran** and the Arabian peninsula. The armed actors, documented threats, and traffic figures differ significantly, even when both straits are covered in the same regional roundup. Lumping them into one regional narrative flattens differences that matter to any shipowner actually plotting a route. *Two straits under tension don't automatically tell the same story.*

## A Qatari tanker crosses Hormuz for the first time in three weeks

### A symbol more than a volume

According to Reuters, an **LNG tanker** controlled by **QatarEnergy**, the **Al Areesh**, left the **Strait of Hormuz** overnight, **the first vessel of its kind recorded by maritime tracking data to exit the strait since July 11**. That fact, precise and dated, contrasts with Bab el-Mandeb's daily fluctuations: it's an isolated, identifiable event, not a mere aggregate number. **Qatar** ranks among the world's largest exporters of **liquefied natural gas**, and every day this class of tanker is absent from this route represents an entire cargo delayed to customers, often bound by fixed-date delivery contracts.

### What a single ship can and cannot signal

**An LNG tanker crossing the strait again after three weeks' absence is a strong signal for gas companies**, but a signal is not a statistic: it says nothing about the behavior of the dozens of other vessels still avoiding the zone. Gas buyers watching this route will need more than a single crossing before adjusting their own shipping assumptions. *A return can announce a trend without yet constituting one.*

## Kpler warns that some ships are sailing with transponders off

### The methodological limit every source shares

**Kpler notes that some vessels may sail with their transponders switched off**, which limits the full cross-checking of the counts presented in this dossier. This methodological caveat isn't specific to one source: it potentially touches the counts from Reuters, **SANA**, The National, and Middle East Eye, all ultimately dependent on transponder-based tracking data.

### Why this limit must stay visible when reading the numbers

**A total of 29, 25, or 49 ships is never an absolute exhaustive count: it's a count of what tracking systems were able to observe.** **Automatic identification** systems used by Kpler and news agencies depend on a signal each ship transmits voluntarily; a captain who decides to cut that signal, for commercial reasons or to dodge **sanctions**, removes their ship from every official count without actually leaving the strait. The gap between what's tracked and what's actually moving is structural, not a temporary glitch someone will soon fix. *What Kpler can't see doesn't stop existing because of that.*

## The UN calls for Red Sea de-escalation as early as July

### An institutional framework that predates the traffic figures

According to **UN News**, the head of the **UN** called for de-escalation in the **Red Sea** in late July, in a context where seafarers remained stranded pending resolution of the regional crisis. This institutional framework, distinct from the commercial data supplied by Kpler and Reuters, places traffic figures within a broader human-security concern, beyond mere logistics.

### What this UN framework adds to reading the numbers

**The stranded seafarers mentioned by the UN are a reminder that a shipping-traffic figure has a human side**: every ship that neither enters nor exits corresponds to a **crew** whose situation also remains suspended. A **seafarer** stuck for weeks aboard a ship waiting for clearance to cross a strait appears in none of the **Kpler** or **Reuters** tables cited above, even though their situation depends directly on the same logistical blockages. That dashboard measures cargo movement; it was never built to measure the people stuck aboard it. *A logistics dashboard sometimes hides real people waiting, motionless, somewhere at sea.*

## The gradual return RFI has documented since December 2025

### A French-language source that dates the start of the recovery

According to **RFI**, as early as December **2025**, a **tentative return of shipping companies** was already taking shape in the **Bab el-Mandeb** strait, off **Yemen**. This **first-hand French-language source** situates the movement observed in July **2026** within a longer trajectory, begun several months earlier, rather than as a phenomenon sudden and specific to the summer of **2026**.

### What that earlier start changes about reading July's numbers

**If the return began back in December, July's 29 or 49 ships don't mark a spectacular rebound, but the continuation of a trend already documented eight months earlier.** **RFI** described, in late **2025**, **shipping companies** still hesitant to reroute through the strait, often preferring the longer route around **Africa** despite its added time and fuel cost. That this movement continues seven months later, with peaks near **50 ships**, suggests gradually rebuilt confidence rather than an abrupt reversal. *A long, gradual recovery reads very differently than a sudden one-off surge would.*

## Five sanctioned ships and a third opaque traffic, a share that raises questions

### What the July 25 makeup reveals about the nature of this traffic

Recall that among the **49 confirmed crossings** on July **25**, Kpler counted **five sanctioned vessels** alongside ships classified as "shadow fleet" or in undeclared transit. **A significant share of the traffic recorded at Bab el-Mandeb that day thus escaped fully transparent identification**, which distinguishes a rise in volume from a rise in legitimate, traceable trade.

### Why this detail tempers any optimistic reading of the recovery

**A rebound in ship numbers doesn't automatically mean a rebound in normally legal and insured commerce.** *Counting ships is not the same as counting ships that are actually in compliance.*

## No shared measurement hour allows a perfect cross-check

### What the sources fail to harmonize

**The sources gathered here do not allow us to isolate a single shared measurement hour for Bab el-Mandeb**, and several articles blend Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz within the same regional tracking, which complicates a line-by-line comparison across the different counts cited in this dossier.

### Why this absence of a shared standard must be named

**Nine sources were gathered here, and none shares exactly the same hourly counting method.** Some dispatches appear to close their reference day at midnight **UTC**, others at an unspecified local hour, and none of the sources consulted here explicitly details its own time-zone convention. *Adding up numbers that were never measured the same way only manufactures a false sense of precision.*

## What this dossier can state, and what it refuses to settle

### A real recovery, but a partial and fragile one

**This dossier can state that traffic at Bab el-Mandeb ranged, between July 20 and July 31, from 15 to 49 ships depending on the day and the source**, with no count matching the peak of **46** ships on July **14** reported by Reuters and **US** News. That wide range, rather than a single smoothed-out figure, faithfully reflects what the nine sources gathered here actually allow us to establish, over an eleven-day window running from July **20** through July **31, 2026** inclusive.

### What this piece refuses to add to the facts

**This piece does not predict whether Bab el-Mandeb will return to its pre-crisis traffic level**, for lack of sufficient data on that earlier period in the sources consulted. Nor does it claim to precisely quantify the **shadow fleet's** share of the observed recovery, or establish a direct causal link between the **UN's** call for de-escalation and the traffic figures observed since. *A documented partial recovery is worth more than an assumed total one.*

## Conclusion: the strait catches its breath, without the crisis letting go

**Twenty-nine ships Thursday, fifteen the preceding Sunday, forty-nine on July 25: these numbers do not draw a straight line toward normalcy, they draw a strait that remains unsettled.** The month's peak, **46** ships on July **14**, has not been matched in the most recent days documented here, and the presence of sanctioned or undeclared-transit vessels reminds us that a portion of this traffic remains, by nature, difficult to fully verify.

**What this dossier ultimately holds onto is the coexistence of two truths that don't cancel each other out.** On one side, a **documented return** traced by **RFI** as far back as December **2025** and confirmed by occasional peaks near **50** ships. On the other, traffic that remains **under security strain**, caught between the embargo cited by The National, the dark transponders flagged by Kpler, and the **UN**'s call for de-escalation. For a shipowner who must decide, this very week, whether to route cargo through Bab el-Mandeb or around **Africa** instead, none of these nine counts taken alone is enough to settle the question: it's their sum, with its gaps and acknowledged limits, that forms the only information actually available to assess the real risk of the passage. *A strait filling back up is not yet a strait that has stopped being frightening.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [UN News (French) — Red Sea: UN chief calls for de-escalation](https://news.un.org/fr/story/2026/07/1159211)

- [UN News — Stranded seafarers remain trapped as Hormuz shipping stalls](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/07/1168004)

### Secondary sources

- [Reuters — Bab el-Mandeb sees 25 commodity vessels transit, Hormuz traffic stays thin](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/bab-el-mandeb-sees-25-commodity-vessels-transit-hormuz-traffic-stays-thin-2026-07-31/)

- [US News — Bab El-Mandeb Shipping Rises Amid Hopes of Resolution in US-Iran War](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-07-28/bab-el-mandeb-shipping-rises-amid-hopes-of-resolution-in-us-iran-war)

- [Middle East Eye — Kpler: Only six vessels cross Hormuz as traffic remains mixed](https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/kpler-only-six-vessels-cross-hormuz-traffic-remains-mixed)

- [SANA — 25 vessels transit Bab al-Mandeb as shipping through Hormuz remains subdued](https://sana.sy/en/economic/2333282/)

- [The National — Bab Al Mandeb ship traffic slumps 56% since Houthis' Saudi embargo](https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/energy/2026/07/27/bab-al-mandeb-ship-traffic-slumps-56-since-houthis-saudi-embargo/)

- [Reuters — QatarEnergy-controlled LNG tanker exits Hormuz, first in nearly three weeks](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatarenergy-controlled-lng-tanker-exits-hormuz-first-nearly-three-weeks-2026-07-30/)

- [RFI — En mer Rouge, le retour timide des compagnies maritimes dans le détroit de Bab el-Mandeb](https://www.rfi.fr/fr/%C3%A9conomie/20251220-en-mer-rouge-le-retour-timide-des-compagnies-maritimes-dans-le-d%C3%A9troit-de-bab-el-mandeb-y%C3%A9men)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/bab-el-mandeb-traffic-climbs-back-up-to-29-ships-but-a-third-still-sails-dark