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.”