Copenhagen-based shipowner and operator of product tankers Torm believes that the risk of maritime safety threats remains unchanged relative to last year. “We deem that the risk of maritime safety threats remains unchanged relative to last year. The risk has reduced in other regions and the East African region has been removed as an “area of unrest” by the Baltic International Maritime Council (BIMCO), OCIMF, and other shipping bodies,” the company says.
Events such as piracy and terrorism could result in kidnapping or injury to seafarers or vessel damage.
Attacks by Houthi rebels on vessels in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a narrow passage connecting the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, have caused significant disruptions to shipping traffic. The shipowner and operator of product tankers Torm decided to temporarily put a halt to transit of the strait of Bab-el Mandeb in Red Sea.
The Trump administration on Tuesday designated the Houthi group in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization.
The group was already the subject of earlier U.S. sanctions and other measures, with the designation of Houthis by the Biden administration as a “specially designated global terrorist” group.
The United States on Wednesday issued sanctions on seven senior members of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said this in a statement, adding that these individuals have smuggled military-grade items and weapon systems into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and also negotiated Houthi weapons procurements from Russia.
The United States is also designating a Houthi operative and his company claiming that recruited Yemeni civilians to fight for Russia in Ukraine, generating revenue to support Houthi militant operations.
“By seeking weapons from a growing array of international suppliers, Houthi leaders have shown their intent to continue their reckless and destabilizing actions in the Red Sea region,” said secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
“The United States will use all available tools to disrupt the Houthis’ terrorist activities and degrade their ability to threaten U.S. personnel, our regional partners, and global maritime trade.”
This action follows the State Department’s announcement on Tuesday of the designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization.
OFAC accused the Houthi leaders that have “devised numerous revenue-generating schemes to enable their attack campaign, often at the expense of Yemen’s most vulnerable populations.”
Since 2023, the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
During 2024, the product tanker market was strongly affected by the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East and the subsequent Houthi attacks against commercial vessels at the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
This led to a widespread rerouting of vessels away from the Red Sea to go around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing trade distances on top of the already longer trade routes as a result of sanctions against Russia, officially introduced in 2023.
Prior to disruption, around 12% of global clean petroleum product volumes transited the Suez Canal, according to the shipowner and operator of product tankers Torm.
“By the end of the first quarter 2024, the number of product tankers transiting the Red Sea had fallen by 60%,” Torm said in its annual report 2024.
The US President Donald Trump laid out in executive order 14175 that, “the Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”
