Trump administration officials are straining the credulity of markets by claiming ever more assertively over the past week that upward of 10 million barrels per day of crude oil are passing through the Strait of Hormuz, about half of what was transiting the crucial trade route before the war with Iran began.
A flow of oil of that magnitude would suggest that the United States has dramatically limited Iran’s ability to hold oil markets hostage and weakened its leverage in peace talks. But oil market analysts and tanker trackers are skeptical of the administration’s figures, with some even calling the numbers “egregious.”
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They have remained doubtful in recent days, even after the administration has upped its estimates of the oil flowing through the strait and said it has set up an operation to facilitate the passage of oil tankers despite the Iranian threat.
Two U.S. officials claimed this week that the U.S. military has been able to facilitate the transit of around 10 million barrels of oil a day through the strait via a southern channel along the coast of Oman, according to Axios.
This is higher than the estimate suggested last week by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who said the seven-day average for oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz, as of Aug. 11, was nearly 9 million barrels per day.
Wright also claimed that, when combined with the number of barrels leaving the region via upgraded pipelines and export facilities, the average amount leaving the Persian Gulf was around 15 million barrels per day.
Before the war, roughly 20 million barrels per day were traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, around 20% of global oil demand.
Over the last week, oil experts have challenged the administration’s figures. Most trackers estimate that just about 5 million barrels of oil are transiting the strait each day, roughly half of the recent administration’s claim.
Trump administration officials, though, say they have access to data that the public does not.
On Monday, Wright told Fox News that he receives a report each day detailing which ships exited the strait, what was being transported, and where the ship came from.
“Ours aren’t estimates — we have the actual data,” he said.
Wright said the agency can track ships that move covertly through the strait, turning off transponders to avoid detection and attacks from Iran. Private estimates of ship counts rely on transponder data and thus are incomplete, he said.
A DOE spokesperson also previously told the Washington Examiner that “in coordination with the U.S. military, the U.S. Department of Energy maintains the best available data related to oil and oil products leaving the Arabian Gulf.”
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Several analysts have acknowledged that their figures are likely low but doubt that the difference is double.
“We’re likely undercounting actual transits, but it feels like a stretch that they’re managing to get *double* that volume out entirely undetected—no sign of loadings, or where these ships may be landing on the other end,” oil market researcher Rory Johnston said Wednesday on X.
On the high end, Johnston said, the seven-day average of confirmed transits through the strait peaked at around 7.5 million barrels per day during the first week of August.
“What’s fascinating is just how aligned ~every ship tracker is right now on Hormuz exit flow—all have it roughly 4-6 MMbpd,” Johnston said Thursday on X.
Johnston said all independent ship trackers put the estimate of oil currently flowing through the strait at 4 million to 6 million barrels per day. He said it would not be difficult for the administration to release data showing its estimates and that there is a “strong incentive” for the government to do so.
The New York Times has also reported that the U.S. military has successfully facilitated the transit of millions of barrels of oil through routes close to Oman’s coast, as described by the U.S. officials who claimed this week that 10 million barrels per day were moving through.
However, the New York Times reported that only about 5 million barrels per day are exiting the strait, half of the administration’s estimate.
Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, has repeatedly cast doubt on the Trump administration’s figures, calling the recent numbers “egregious,” “utterly preposterous,” and “complete crap.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that the U.S. is not successfully getting barrels out of the strait.
“Look… two things can be true here,” Erickson wrote in a post to X. “1) A significant amount of oil IS being moved along the Omani Route 2) No evidence WHATSOEVER supports the claim that 10M barrels per day are moving via the Omani Route.”
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Oil traders appear doubtful that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is nearing pre-war levels, with international and domestic oil prices inching closer to a four-week high.
On Wednesday, Brent Crude futures closed at $91.62 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate settled at $85.83 a barrel. This is the highest either benchmark has closed at since July 24.
