The Houthis are testing Riyadh: Another oil artery under threat?

The Houthis do not trade with the Saudis in any meaningful volume, so an "embargo" in the classical economic sense makes little sense. This new threat against Saudi Arabia is a different animal. Riyadh has not forgotten 2019, and the Houthis know it. Yanbu is the terminus of the East-West pipeline, the artery that carries oil from fields in central and eastern Saudi Arabia across the peninsula to the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia has shown little appetite to invade Houthi territory on its own initiative.