Impact on Red Sea vessel shipped oil exports caused by the Israel-Hamas conflict 2024

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7th 2023, The shipping industry in the Red Sea has been severely impacted. With multiple attacks by Houti rebels in Yemen as well as the hijacking of the vehicle transporting vessel, the Galaxy Leader on November 19th 2023, the extreme violence in the region has severely limited the import and export of goods. Despite repeated attempts at negotiating a ceasefire, the conflict at present shows very little sign of stopping, consequently elongating the impact on shipping.

What's the situation?

in 2022, The Middle East transported approximately 15.4 million barrels, making up about one third of the worlds oil production for that year. By contrast, on February 8th 2024, only 589,262 barrels were shipped from the region, a significant decrease compared to November 21st 2023, where over 2 million barrels were exported, two days after the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader. On more than one occasion, no barrels were shipped from the region, in particular in December 2023, where the brief week-long truce ended and resulted in the continuation of the conflict.

When will the industry recover?

With the multiple attempts at negotiating ceasefires failing to materialize, and the number of casualties in Gaza rising to over 22,000 in January 2024, the impact of the conflict is set to continue for some time. Despite Over 60 percent of Gazans either strongly or somewhat agreeing there should be a ceasefire with Israel, the lack of action in this field by both sides to negotiate a ceasefire will further elongate this conflict and the impact on vessel shipped oil exports from the region. 

Information on the data situation:

The respective data source was named for the purpose of transparency. It must be stated that in the case of wars and other conflicts, objective data collection is almost impossible, and reports relating to the region are largely based on estimates. At the same time, it needs to be noted that some parties involved in the conflict may use numbers and data selectively for their own agenda.