Two Chinese supertankers with Saudi oil exit Red Sea

Two Chinese supertankers carrying a combined 4 million barrels of Saudi Arabian oil exited the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb strait earlier today, shipping data shows, apparently escaping a blockade on shipments of Saudi oil by Yemen’s Houthi militias even as other Saudi vessels came under attack.

The Red Sea blockade by the Iran-aligned Houthis is worsening global energy supply disruption, coming at the same time the key Strait of Hormuz has practically shut due to the resumption of fighting between the US and Iran.

The Singaporean-flagged VLCC Xin Long Yang, which made a U-turn and paused in the middle of the Red Sea on Tuesday, resumed its journey southward late on Wednesday, LSEG shipping data showed.

The Chinese-flagged VLCC Cosnew Lake followed and both tankers exited the Red Sea later on Thursday, the data shows.

The Xin Long Yang was heading to the port of Qinzhou in southern Guangxi province,while Cosnew Lake is expected to discharge its cargo at the port of Huizhou, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the data shows.

Both vessels indicated through their automatic identification system transmitters that there were Chinese crew onboard, the data showed. The vessels are chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Asia’s largest refiner Sinopec 600028.SS, and loaded crude at Saudi Arabia’s port of Yanbu earlier this week.

At least two other VLCCs chartered by Unipec and scheduled to enter the Red Sea and load Saudi crude at the Yanbu port later this month slowed their advance towards Bab el-Mandeb and were making small circles in the Gulf of Aden, LSEG data showed.