Singapore condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure and Red Sea shipping on July 26, naming two international maritime treaties and urging every party in the widening war to back off. The statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) followed July 25 strikes that hit Saudi Aramco facilities in Jizan and Yanbu, the state oil giant’s refining and export lifeline on the Red Sea coast.
Singapore has no oil wells of its own. It does have the world’s busiest bunkering port, one of Asia’s largest refining complexes, and a trading desk that prices Asian crude. All three sit downstream of the waters the Houthis just put back in play.
Two Conventions, Not a Generic Condemnation
An MFA spokesperson did not simply denounce the attacks on energy infrastructure and commercial vessels. The statement named two specific international agreements and asked that both be honored in full.
It is imperative that navigational rights and freedoms are respected and upheld in accordance with international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), and that the safety of seafarers and ships is ensured in accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (Solas).
The ministry issued the statement on July 26 as part of its broader position on the Middle East situation. The spokesperson also urged all parties to exercise restraint and avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, without naming Iran, the Houthis or the Saudi-led coalition directly.
- UNCLOS – the 1982 UN treaty that sets out navigation rights, territorial waters and freedom of passage for every flag state, including Singapore’s own merchant fleet.
- SOLAS – the international convention that governs ship safety standards and protects seafarers, the workforce that keeps Singapore’s port moving.
Both conventions matter to a country whose economy runs on ships passing through other people’s waters safely and predictably.
What Hit Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree told Reuters the group had struck Aramco sites in both Jizan and Yanbu on July 25, the group’s first direct hit on Saudi oil infrastructure in four years. Two Asia-based trading sources said they had been told of possible damage to fuel and oil storage at Jizan. In Yanbu, air defenses intercepted two missiles aimed at oil installations.
| Site | Role | What Happened July 25 | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jizan | Refinery near the Yemeni border | Struck directly; trading sources flagged possible storage damage | Can process up to 400,000 barrels a day, about 4% of Aramco’s total daily output |
| Yanbu | Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea oil port | Two missiles intercepted before impact | Outlet for the East-West Pipeline since Iran choked the Strait of Hormuz |
Brent crude jumped past $100 a barrel in the hours after the strikes, capping a roughly 40% climb over the month, before easing back toward the high $80s as traders waited for confirmation of lasting production losses. The attacks came five days after the Houthis announced a naval blockade of Saudi shipping and claimed strikes on two Saudi oil tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, in the Red Sea.
A City-State That Refines More Than It Pumps
Singapore’s stake in this war has nothing to do with sympathy and everything to do with throughput.
- Largest bunkering port in the world, the place where ships refuel as they cross between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
- Third-largest oil refining centre globally, processing more than 1.5 million barrels of crude a day despite holding no domestic reserves.
- Jurong Island contributes roughly 3% of national GDP from a 3,000-hectare reclaimed site hosting more than 100 international energy and chemical firms.
- Over 4.3 million cubic metres of tank storage capacity ring the island, feeding one of Asia’s top three oil trading hubs.
Jurong Port’s own tank terminal complex, built to rank among one of Asia Pacific’s largest petroleum storage terminals, depends on the same crude and product flows now passing through a war zone. Every barrel that gets rerouted, delayed or insured at a higher premium touches that terminal’s economics before it touches a pump anywhere else.
The Same Legal Language, Deployed Before
Singapore has run this playbook for years, just in a different sea. In South China Sea disputes, its foreign ministry has repeatedly urged parties to manage differences calmly and in accordance with international law, UNCLOS included. Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan has argued that ASEAN’s unity rests on upholding that same convention, and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has separately pushed for renewed global commitment to international sea law.
Researchers at the an honest broker in the South China Sea describe Singapore’s approach as rooted in a small state’s fundamental interest in peaceful, rules-based dispute settlement rather than in outcomes decided by force. That is precisely the language the MFA reached for on July 26, transplanted from one contested sea to another.
Singaporeans Are Already on the Way Out
The diplomatic statement is not the only sign of how seriously Singapore is treating this war. The city-state has already sent flights sent to retrieve stranded citizens from Riyadh, and both Singapore Airlines and budget carrier Scoot have repeatedly extended cancellations on Middle East routes as the conflict has widened.
Those moves predate the Jizan and Yanbu strikes. Together with the July 26 statement, they read less like isolated reactions and more like a single government tracking one connected risk: people, planes, ships and refinery inputs all exposed to the same escalating conflict at once.
The Cost of a Second Chokepoint
The war had already disrupted energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blockaded for months. A second major Red Sea route now sits under direct fire, and the shipping industry’s own numbers show what that has already cost once before.
- War risk insurance for Red Sea transits runs $150,000 to $300,000 a voyage in 2026, down from a twentyfold spike at the crisis’s 2024 onset but still many multiples of the pre-disruption baseline.
- Cargo war-risk surcharges have settled near $50 to $100 per container, after peaking at $200 to $400 in early 2024.
- Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope adds 10 to 14 days and an estimated $1.2 million to $1.8 million in fuel costs per round trip.
- Suez transit volumes fell 50 to 60% year over year since 2024 as carriers diverted around Africa instead.
Asia to Europe freight rates are running 25% to 40% above pre-crisis levels, and Maersk booked a $153 million loss in its ocean division in the final quarter of 2025 absorbing the cost of Cape diversions. Every one of those costs eventually clears through Singapore’s port, its bunker sales or its trading desks. Yanbu’s role as the outlet for a pipeline already running at capacity means any further damage there pushes more Saudi crude onto the same overstretched Cape route, and Jizan’s exposure narrows the kingdom’s options on the kingdom’s last open Red Sea oil route even further.
Does Yemen’s 2022 Truce Survive This?
Barely. The ceasefire that paused Yemen’s civil war in 2022 broke down this month, and Houthi forces have effectively folded themselves into the wider Iran-Israel-US conflict five months after Washington and Israel first struck the group. Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition against the Houthis for more than a decade, since the Iran-aligned fighters seized the capital, Sanaa, and that fight is now reopening alongside the oil war.
Yemeni officials said the air force of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government struck Houthi positions in the Marib and al-Jawf provinces on the same day the Houthis hit Jizan and Yanbu. Hundreds of thousands of people died from fighting and famine during the original civil war before the truce took hold.
The 2022 truce still exists on paper. In practice, Houthi missiles are now aimed at Aramco’s refineries and Saudi jets are back over Marib, the same province where the ground war went quiet four years ago.
