Choke Points — Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, Malacca, the Bosporus
The maritime passages that move 25-40% of global trade — passage volumes, alternative routings, and the freight-cost premia that emerge when transit is disrupted
On November 19, 2023, Houthi forces operating from Yemen captured the car carrier Galaxy Leader as it transited the southern Red Sea, and over the following weeks began launching missile and drone attacks against commercial shipping passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait — the 18-mile-wide passage between Yemen and Djibouti that connects the Red Sea (and via the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean and Europe) to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Within a few weeks, the world's largest container shipping lines announced they would suspend Red Sea transits and route Asia-Europe cargo around the Cape of Good Hope instead — a 3,500-nautical-mile detour adding 10-14 days to each Asia-Europe voyage and consuming roughly an additional 1,500-2,000 metric tons of bunker fuel per round trip. By February 2024, Suez Canal monthly transits had fallen approximately 50 percent year-over-year.
Cape of Good Hope tonnage had risen approximately 60 percent over the same window.
That is the opening. Finishing a lesson is where it stops being interesting and starts being useful: the full lesson runs to 7 sections and ends with 6 practice questions. A free account is what opens the rest, and the other 255 lessons in the Academy with it. No card.
What this lesson covers
- 1Why choke points matter — the freight-rate premium and the re-routing cost
- 2Reading choke point disruption for asset-class signal
- 3The four maritime choke points — flows, alternatives, and disruption sensitivity
- 4The freight-rate premium calculation when re-routing is forced
- 5November 2023 onwards — the Houthi Bab-el-Mandeb attacks and the Cape of Good Hope re-routing
- 6Where to see this on the platform
- 7Summary