U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Wednesday that Monday’s shipborne oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz topped 17 million barrels — a peak not seen since hostilities with Iran broke out in late February.
Accounting for the capacity of Saudi Arabian and Emirati overland pipelines that skirt the strait entirely, Wright said total regional exports on Monday cleared pre-war benchmarks. In the weeks before the Feb. 28 outbreak of fighting, the strait had been handling roughly 20 million barrels of crude and petroleum products each day. Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan that Iran is losing its ability to “hold the world economic hostage” as the U.S. military assists tankers through the waterway. “With or without Iran, oil and gas will flow out of the Arabian Gulf region and it’s happening,” he said.
A shipping corridor hugging Oman’s coastline was set up by the U.S. military for tankers belonging to Gulf allies transiting Hormuz, with vessels frequently making the passage at night and running dark — transponders off — to reduce their exposure to attack. Tehran has answered by targeting vessels that use that passage, insisting commercial shipping must instead follow a northern lane that runs through Iranian territorial waters. Several tankers came under attack this week, according to CNBC.
Official U.S. counts of oil moving through the strait have consistently come in above estimates published by commercial vessel-tracking services. Wright has argued that government figures are more accurate than those of private trackers, pointing out that firms operating without military access routinely fail to detect ships running dark.
U.S. crude oil fell about 1% on Wednesday, though futures had briefly touched roughly $90 a barrel during the session while Washington and Tehran traded military strikes, bringing a stretch of relative calm to an end.
Since early May, U.S. military escorts have helped tankers move more than 660 million barrels of crude through Hormuz, with roughly 1,300 commercial vessels receiving assistance over that span, according to U.S. Central Command. That throughput remained well below pre-war norms; U.S. officials had told Axios that about 10 million barrels per day were exiting the strait in recent weeks before Monday’s figure. Wright had said on Aug. 11 that the seven-day average had risen to nearly 9 million barrels per day.
The security situation has remained volatile. Tehran has insisted that Hormuz will stay closed until Washington meets its conditions under a June 17 interim agreement, a position President Donald Trump has rejected. The International Maritime Organization recorded at least 17 attacks on commercial vessels in the waters around the strait during July and August, with at least four sailors killed and more than a dozen wounded.