US energy secretary reports Strait of Hormuz oil flow at 11M bpd, roughly half of pre-war levels

The Strait of Hormuz was never designed to be optional. About one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through that narrow 21-mile-wide chokepoint between Iran and Oman, and right now it is functioning at something closer to half capacity.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on September 10 that oil and petroleum products flowing through the strait by ship had averaged just under 11 million barrels per day over the prior seven days. That figure is a meaningful data point in a situation where solid numbers have been hard to pin down since the U.S.-Iran conflict escalated in late February 2026.

What the numbers actually mean

Before the conflict, the strait was moving roughly 20 million barrels per day, representing about one-fifth of global oil demand on any given day. At 11 million bpd, the current maritime figure sits at approximately 55% of that baseline.

Wright also noted that bypass pipelines are moving an additional 3 to 5 million bpd alongside the maritime traffic. Combined, total throughput in the region lands somewhere between 14 and 16 million bpd, still well below the pre-conflict norm but meaningfully higher than the 6 to 8 million bpd that independent maritime trackers had been reporting based on security-adjusted vessel counts.

The gap between Wright’s numbers and the independent tracker estimates matters. The U.S. Navy has been providing escort services for commercial vessels navigating the strait, which may be enabling ships to transit that would otherwise divert or anchor.

Oil crossed the $100 per barrel threshold in September 2026, a level that concentrates the mind of every energy-importing economy on Earth.

Six months of managed crisis

The U.S.-Iran conflict that reshaped strait dynamics began around February 28, 2026. The strait has been threatened or partially disrupted before, most notably during the Tanker War of the 1980s, but sustained military engagement affecting transit volumes at this scale is genuinely new territory for modern energy markets.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE both operate bypass pipelines that can move crude overland to ports outside the strait. The 3 to 5 million bpd Wright cited for pipeline flows reflects those systems running near or at capacity. The East-West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi’s Habshan-Fujairah line were built precisely for scenarios like this one, but they were never sized to replace the full maritime route.

What traders and importers should watch

The 11 million bpd figure is a seven-day average, which means it can move. Markets have already demonstrated they respond to each data point with significant price swings, given how little verified information has been available since February.

Asia is the region with the most direct exposure. Japan, South Korea, India, and China collectively absorb the majority of Persian Gulf crude exports. For those economies, every million barrels per day of shortfall represents a real cost in terms of industrial output, inflation pressure, and reserve drawdown.

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