White House claims that more than 17 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday have been challenged by tanker-tracking data suggesting the true figure was closer to 9.14 million barrels.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the volume represented a wartime record and claimed that, once alternative pipeline routes were included, more oil had left the Middle East than before the conflict with Iran began.
“Monday was our record ever through, since the conflict began. Over 17 million barrels of oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz on ships on Monday,” Wright told CNBC. “If you add the bypass export pipelines, more than left the region [than] in the pre-conflict.”
But Samir Madani, co-founder of tanker-monitoring firm TankerTrackers.com, said the administration appeared to be combining oil movements recorded over several days and presenting them as a single day’s total.
Madani described the calculation as “mathemagics”, saying that an estimated 9.14 million barrels of oil had exited the Arabian Sea on Monday, August 31. That figure included shipments through Hormuz as well as volumes using alternative routes from the Gulf of Oman.
Oil flows remain below pre-war levels
The estimate was among the highest recorded since the fighting began, but remained well below the pre-war volume. Madani said the seven-day average stood at 8.27 million barrels a day, compared with a recent 28-day average of 6.85 million.
Traffic also fell sharply after the latest exchange of attacks between the United States and Iran, with estimated exports dropping to 6.81 million barrels on September 1 and 4.63 million on September 2.
“You can see that it is anything but steady,” Madani said, pointing to the wide daily fluctuations since the conflict began. Before the war, almost 15 million barrels of crude oil routinely passed through Hormuz each day, rising to about 20 million barrels when other petroleum products were included.
The White House defended the figures, saying the US government and military had access to the “best available data” on oil products moving through the Arabian Gulf.
President Donald Trump has also said that the strait is in “extremely good shape”, citing the number of ships travelling with US Navy assistance. However, independent tracking indicates that shipments remain substantially below normal levels and are vulnerable to further disruption.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil shipments, and the uncertainty surrounding the waterway has helped keep Brent crude above $95 a barrel despite efforts to reopen shipping routes and use bypass pipelines.
