Hormuz Oil Traffic Roars Past 17 Million Barrels in Wartime Record

More than 17 million barrels of oil moved by ship through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, marking the highest daily volume since the Iran war began in late February, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC.

The figure signals a sharp recovery in traffic through one of the most critical petroleum corridors in the world.

Disruption in the strait has rattled crude markets, tanker operators, refiners, and governments dependent on Arabian Gulf energy supplies.

Wright said regional oil exports on Monday exceeded levels recorded before the war when volumes carried through pipelines operated by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were included.

Those pipelines allow producers to move some barrels around the Strait of Hormuz.

Before the conflict began on Feb. 28, roughly 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined products passed through the narrow waterway.

That flow represented a substantial portion of internationally traded petroleum and made the strait a central pressure point for global energy security.

Wright argued that Tehran is steadily losing its capacity to “hold the world economic hostage” as the U.S. military assists tankers navigating the corridor.

The increase in shipments supports Washington’s claim that Iranian pressure is no longer stopping energy traffic at the scale initially feared.

Tehran is “causing some disruption but they are losing that card,” Wright said.

His comments presented the expanding tanker flow as evidence that military protection and revised navigation procedures are weakening Iran’s leverage over the market.

The Energy secretary spoke with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Venezuela on Wednesday. The interview came five days after President Donald Trump announced a major oil agreement with the interim government in Caracas.

The United States government has reported higher Hormuz export volumes than several independent ship tracking companies.

That gap has prompted questions about how much petroleum is actually clearing the waterway while commercial vessels take extraordinary measures to conceal their movements.

Wright has maintained that the U.S. military and the Department of Energy possess the most reliable information. Private tracking services can miss tankers traveling covertly, particularly when vessels switch off their transponders or navigate during periods of reduced visibility.

Those hidden movements have become an important feature of wartime shipping in the Arabian Gulf. Conventional vessel monitoring systems provide an incomplete picture when operators deliberately limit electronic signals to reduce exposure to surveillance and possible attack.

U.S. crude oil futures fell about 1 percent on Wednesday, although the contract traded near $90 per barrel earlier in the session.

Prices remained sensitive as Washington and Tehran exchanged military strikes, breaking a period of relative calm and renewing concern about shipping security.

The U.S. military has established a protected shipping corridor along the coast of Oman for tankers operated by Gulf allies.

Vessels frequently travel through the route at night and turn off their transponders in an effort to make targeting more difficult.

“With or without Iran, oil and gas will flow out of the Arabian Gulf region and it’s happening,” Wright told CNBC on Wednesday.

The declaration reflected growing confidence within the Trump administration that escorted and concealed tanker movements can keep exports running despite Iranian threats.

The danger has not disappeared, however, and the expanding flow through Hormuz remains exposed to military escalation.

Iran has repeatedly attacked vessels using the route protected by the United States and has demanded that commercial tankers instead use a northern corridor running through Iranian waters.

At least two tankers came under attack in the strait this week, according to incident reports from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.

Those incidents show that higher export volumes do not amount to normal operating conditions for crews, shipowners, insurers, or cargo customers.

The return of more than 17 million barrels in a single day nevertheless represents a significant shift from the disruption that followed the opening attacks.

For oil markets, the central question is whether these volumes can be sustained while military strikes continue and tankers remain vulnerable inside the strait.