As oil soars, experts watch Red Sea tankers for clarity on Houthi blockade

As oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday, experts say they are watching to see which vessels Yemen's Houthis allow to pass through in the Red Sea as that will indicate how the crude market trends. 'The Houthis are quite mercurial and there is no complete clarity on what the blockade means,' said Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward. 'No one has ever been able to predict their actions... but they know you don't have to do a lot to get the oil markets to react.' The enforcement is calibrated to affiliation rather than cargo and the blockade is shaping who moves Saudi crude, not whether it moves, Windward said.