Red Sea Crisis Adds 100,000 Bpd to Global Fuel Demand

The shipping industry is consuming an additional 100,000 barrels per day of fuel to sail longer distances needed to avoid traversing the Red Sea, Vitol Chief Executive Officer Russell Hardy said on Wednesday.

Total distance traveled by ships is about 3% more than it was before Yemen's Houthi group started attacking shipping, Hardy said.

Tanker traffic in the Red Sea is higher today than it was five years ago, he said, but global conflicts have shifted global trade flows.

"We have had to re-orientate so much all over," he said at a panel during the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Texas. "There is a lot more unusual movement happening today than what was happening in 2019."

(Reuters - Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Simon Webb)