The series counts crude and product tankers transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait each day, positioned from satellite AIS signals published by IMF PortWatch, and plots the trailing 7-day mean because raw daily counts swing several-fold. Before the attacks began, the strait carried around 12% of global seaborne oil trade — every Suez-bound barrel from the Gulf has to pass through it.
The counts come from IMF PortWatch, which positions vessels daily from satellite AIS signals; this page reads the tanker count rather than the all-vessel total, because container ships returning to the route say nothing about crude. The page refreshes from the live data every hour and shows nothing cached, estimated or substituted.
Traffic that stops here does not vanish: it diverts around Africa, adding 10-14 days and burning extra fuel per voyage, while war-risk premiums and freight rates reprice within days of each attack. The baseline comparison tells you whether the disruption is persisting — a sustained collapse vs baseline is not a single incident being digested, it is the route staying closed.
The two directions mean opposite things for US equities. A sustained fall against the baseline is a cost shock compounding: freight, insurance and delivery times feed goods prices and margins for every week the route stays shut, and dearer goods feed the inflation and rate path that stock valuations are priced off. A rise back toward baseline is the diversion trade unwinding — freight and insurance normalising, and one source of cost pressure coming off the market. Note the difference from Hormuz: traffic here can divert around Africa, so a closure raises cost and delay rather than removing barrels outright.
For US equities the strait matters as a cost shock: freight, insurance and delivery times feed into goods prices and margins, and the crude that does not reroute shows up in the Brent price. Read this page alongside the Hormuz count — the Bab el-Mandeb has been closed since July 2026, and no previous shock closed both straits at once.