After two months of Israeli raids... How is the operational capacity in Hodeidah ports?

Two months after the Israeli aggression on the port of Hodeidah (western Yemen), oil derivatives storage facilities were destroyed, leading to a decline in the capabilities of the ports, which are the main artery for the most densely populated Yemeni governorates, which are controlled by the Houthis.

On July 20, the Israeli occupation launched about 20 air strikes on the port of Hodeidah. The strikes mainly targeted the fuel tanks in the port, causing huge fires that lasted for several days, in addition to destroying cranes in the port.

In this file, "Yemeni Youth Net" monitors the extent of the damage that befell the port of Hodeidah and other ports, after the Israeli raids, while the Houthis refrain from talking about the crisis they are suffering in the port of Hodeidah, which is the most important source of revenue for the group.

Several sources spoke of "a crisis in the supply of trailers during the past weeks at the ports of Hodeidah, and an attempt by the Houthis to cover it up" amid fears of a supply crisis in domestic gas. Truck drivers crowded at the port are demanding to be allowed to fill trailers from the Safer facility in Marib. The Houthis are refusing to respond or find solutions to the crisis.

Port capacity decline

Shipping sources in Hodeidah ports said that gas and fuel ships heading to the ports have declined significantly in the past two months, after an Israeli airstrike caused widespread damage to the main storage facilities in Hodeidah port. The sources added, "There are no tankers registered to transport fuel or liquefied gas in Hodeidah heading to the port, according to the list of ships scheduled to dock at the port."

The Houthi-controlled Red Sea Ports Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce in the capital Sana’a, the regional center, and several Houthi news outlets have refrained from publishing ship movements at Hodeidah ports since mid-July, a week before the Israeli occupation raids, without explaining the failure to publish.

A source in one of the shipping companies said, “The port of Hodeidah issued an official notice to ships, asking them not to arrive. This was a major indicator of their inability to receive oil and liquid gas.”

Gas truck drivers said in mid-September in a statement that one gas ship had been anchored at Ras Isa port for a long time and had only enough gas for 200-300 locomotives. They said that “a strong wind destroyed equipment at the port’s quay, which was built in a way that did not meet the standards, and put the quay out of service.”

Journalist Faris Al-Hamri revealed that a ship anchored in Ras Isa port slipped in early September and destroyed a network of pipes, equipment and valves, after the Houthis hired a new crew of technicians in recent weeks. This slippage disrupted the primitive unloading process that was taking place in the port.

Read more..

• Human Rights Watch: Israeli attack on Hodeidah port a 'possible war crime'
• Hodeidah Port.. Developed by the Yemeni Revolution, Militarized by the Houthis, and Burned by Israel
• Why did Israel choose to bomb oil facilities in the port of Hodeidah?

The tanks at Ras Isa port had a capacity of about 50,000 tons of fuel, and the Houthis claimed last year that they were seeking to build new tanks with a capacity of 75,000 tons. A year after the Houthis announced, there is no trace of those projects that they allegedly were implementing.

Photos from the surroundings of Ras Isa and Salif ports show a lack of infrastructure, and the absence of any administrative or technical buildings to operate the two ports. There are also no gates to Ras Isa port, no wide asphalt lines, and no sidewalks either.

Navigational sources told Yemen Youth Net that Ras Issa port is small and known to be closed, and that its activity is twenty or thirty times slower than the main port of Hodeidah, and it lacks infrastructure, a dock, and other infrastructure necessary for its activity.

She said, "Previously, one tanker was unloaded every day according to the port's capabilities. Now, it takes between 20 and 30 days to unload one tanker."

Damage to Hodeidah Port

Open source data shows the significant economic damage to the port of Hodeidah, with storage capacity shrinking from 40,000 to 50,000 tons. The previous unloading capacity before the Houthi coup was about 50,000 tons of oil and gas liquids every 48 hours or so, depending on the number of times ships dock and the size of those containers.

The data - viewed by "Yemeni Youth Net" - indicates that "the port is operating at about 30% of its original capacity, and that the Houthis used to empty two to three fuel or gas tanks daily, but now they empty one tank per month."

Navigation tracking reveals that fuel tankers to Hodeidah port have not received any new calls for tankers to dock at the port for at least four weeks until September 21, meaning the port will remain closed for two or three months.

Data indicates that the gas pipelines in the port of Hodeidah are destroyed and require a large cost to rebuild, and months of continuous work, and the Houthis have not allocated any new budget to rebuild instead of the destroyed ones.

To clarify the extent of the damage - according to informed sources - currently, if there is a ship carrying 30,000 tons of fuel, it would require 1,300 fuel trucks to unload it within 24 hours, which the main port of Hodeidah does not have the capacity for, and the dilapidated port of Ras Issa lacks this completely.

According to Houthi estimates, the material damage from the Israeli strike on the port of Hodeidah amounted to about $20 million, excluding oil losses. Nasr al-Nusairi, vice chairman of the board of directors of the Red Sea Ports Corporation (affiliated with the Houthis), said that the losses "exceed $20 million for the port, while the oil facilities are estimated by the Ministry of Oil," according to a statement reported by the French agency.

About 38 tanks destroyed.. Can the Houthis rebuild them?

The Israeli raids in its aggression on the port of Hodeidah destroyed no less than 38 tanks, with capacities ranging between 10,000 tons for the large size, 3,000 tons for the medium size, and 1,000 tons for the small size.

It took Shell six months to build a 3,000-tonne tank, according to trade and shipping sources working in the field in a European country. So the Houthis are unlikely to build alternative storage facilities if they decide to rebuild them.

Building tanks requires solid steel materials, sensing, cooling, temperature, measuring and heating systems, huge pipes extending for miles underground, a pump, wires, a long time of work, professional efforts and giant companies to build them again.

Satellite images showed fuel leaking from tanks bombed last July into the sea, suggesting that Israeli airstrikes may have also hit those pipelines, if not another event.

Here a question arises: Can ships empty gas directly into transport trailers? Informed sources say that “in the case of a maximum capacity of thirty thousand tons, the port of Hodeidah needs a large area sufficient for the entry of 1,300 trucks, each with a capacity of 20-25 tons, to the Hodeidah port dock to unload them in two days.”

The sources stated that "the port of Hodeidah does not have the capacity to handle such a huge number of trucks, in addition to the lack of technical capabilities to carry out such a process, in the event that the Houthis decide to carry it out to overcome the crisis of destroying the tanks in the port."

Sources revealed a kidnapping campaign targeting workers due to the halt in gas transport from Ras Issa port. Sources working in the transport market said, "Last week, the Houthi militia kidnapped two people while they were protesting the halt in gas transport from Hodeidah port."

Fears of a gas supply crisis

"Yemeni Youth Net" obtained a special document, revealing that the management of the gas company in Hodeidah requested that drivers head to Ras Issa port to fill trailers with gas shipments, after a halt. The Houthi document did not clarify the duration of the halt, but it also did not talk about the reason for resuming gas without the arrival of new gas ships to the port.

Special sources revealed to "Yemeni Youth Net" that "there are more than 600 trucks (trailers) waiting their turn for 40 days in order to transport gas to the various Yemeni governorates that are under the control of the Houthi militias."

"Yemeni Youth Net" obtained two documents from protesting drivers in which they accuse the Houthi militia and the gas company at Ras Issa port of besieging them and preventing them from loading trucks without explaining the reasons. In one of the documents, a driver demanded compensation for the expenses they incurred due to the delay.

The document, submitted by the trailer drivers and addressed to the Minister of Oil in the Houthi government (not recognized), warned of a food crisis in all Yemeni governorates. The drivers demanded that they be allowed to fill their quotas from the Safer facility in Marib, which is under the control of the legitimate government.

A photo obtained by "Yemeni Youth Net" showed hundreds of trucks designated for transporting gas parked for more than seven weeks in Ras Issa port, waiting to be supplied with gas.

The Houthi militia had banned the import of domestic gas from the Safer facility in Marib in May 2023 and replaced it with external imports as part of a series of measures within the framework of its economic war on the legitimate government, which warned that this would double its price for citizens and said at the time, "The militias are trading in the food of the Yemenis."

Houthi revenues

According to economic estimates, the Houthi group earns more than $3 million daily from the profits of importing and selling oil derivatives in the areas under its control, which are the most densely populated in Yemen. This means that the Houthi militias are losing a lot of economic revenues.

As for the announced taxes, the Houthi militia collects more than two billion dollars annually, and does not include the levies that it extracts under dozens of names that the militias have established over the past years, with the aim of levying taxes on merchants and citizens in the areas under its control.

Government statistics in August 2023 indicate that the quantities of petroleum derivatives that entered through the port of Hodeidah during the year, from April 2022 until the same month in 2024, amounted to “6,518,000” tons, and that the Houthis impose sums of money amounting to more than 50 Yemeni riyals for every liter sold in areas under their control.

The Houthis' total revenue amounts to two billion dollars, net of their direct share from selling these quantities. Yemeni Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani said, "157 ships loaded with oil have been authorized to enter and unload their cargo at the port of Hodeidah since the announcement of the UN truce in early April 2022."