With Saudi Arabia facing pressure at both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb at once, assess the implications for India's energy security and suggest strategies to diversify.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline to Yanbu was the Gulf's main way around Hormuz. With the Houthis now attacking Red Sea shipping, both of the Kingdom's sea exits are under pressure. For India, this turns a single-route risk into risks to supply, price and security. The danger is serious, but India can manage it because it has already diversified.

Implications for India's energy security

• Two chokepoints at once: Before the crisis, about 45% of India's crude imports passed through Hormuz [1]. Houthi attacks then halved Yanbu's exports in August and pushed Saudi cargoes through Suez, a longer and costlier route for Asian buyers [2].
• Price and cost shock: Rising freight and insurance costs are pushing up delivered oil prices [3]. This widens the current account deficit and adds to inflation.
• LPG is the weakest point: India imports about 60% of its LPG, and about 90% of those imports come via Hormuz [4]. This puts household cooking fuel, including Ujjwala connections, at risk.
• Diaspora security: The Houthi strike on Riyadh airport killed 12 people [5]. The MEA has responded publicly to the attacks [6]. Both remittances and evacuation plans are now at stake.
• What softens the blow: With 40+ suppliers, about 70% of India's crude now comes via routes outside Hormuz [1]. The shock has been absorbed, though not avoided.

Strategies to diversify

• Suppliers: Keep buying from the Americas, Africa and Russia, but do not let any one replacement supplier take the Gulf's share.
• Routes: Prefer term contracts with sources that avoid chokepoints. Extend naval escort missions such as Operation Sankalp to the Gulf of Aden.
• Buffers: The Strategic Petroleum Reserves (5.33 MMT) cover only about 9.5 days of need. Phase-II at Chandikhol and Padur (6.5 MMT) should be finished quickly [7], moving towards the IEA's 90-day norm.
• Demand side: Expand ethanol blending and flex-fuel vehicles [8], EVs and the Green Hydrogen Mission.
• Diplomacy: Use the India–Saudi Strategic Partnership Council to secure priority cargoes, and defend freedom of navigation under UNCLOS without taking sides between Riyadh and Tehran.

The twin squeeze shows that energy security depends on routes, reserves and demand as well as on suppliers. If India combines more suppliers, larger strategic reserves and a faster clean-energy transition, it can turn this crisis into lasting resilience. That also serves SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and India's goal of energy independence by 2047.