🚨 TRUMP SAYS HORMUZ OIL FLOWS HAVE ROARED BACK TO 90% — AND ENERGY MARKET FEARS ARE EASING FAST… |
TRUMP SAYS HORMUZ OIL FLOWS ARE BACK TO 18 MILLION BPD - A RECORD-DAY SURGE IS REAL, BUT NORMAL TRAFFIC HAS NOT RETURNED
President Donald Trump is claiming that oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has rebounded to 18 million barrels per day, nearly matching the roughly 20 million barrels that moved through the world's most important energy chokepoint before the Iran war.
The claim is not invented. On September 3, Trump posted a graphic declaring that 'Hormuz Oil Volumes are BACK,' comparing 20 million barrels per day before the war with 18 million 'now.' U.S. officials also said the military had escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying roughly 18 million barrels through the strait during a record wartime operation earlier that week.
But the number needs an important qualification. The strongest available evidence supports 18 million barrels as a very high single-day or convoy total, not as a sustained multi-day average that independent shipping trackers have confirmed.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said 17 million barrels moved through on one day and later acknowledged that the rolling average was closer to 8 million barrels per day. Private trackers have likewise measured substantially lower multi-day flows, although dark transits and ship-to-ship transfers make wartime counting unusually difficult.
And by September 7, the picture had deteriorated again. New U.S.-Iranian attacks on tankers pushed observed commodity traffic through Hormuz to its lowest 10-day average since May.
The defensible claim is that Hormuz oil traffic has staged a major recovery and may have reached about 18 million barrels on a record day. It is not yet established that the strait is sustainably moving 18 million barrels every day.
Trump Posted the 18 Million Figure on September 3
Trump's 18 million figure came directly from his Truth Social account on September 3.
The graphic displayed two bars: 'Before' at 20 million barrels per day and 'Now' at 18 million barrels per day, under the headline 'Hormuz Oil Volumes are BACK.'
That framing presented the recovery as nearly complete, implying that oil flows had returned to roughly 90 percent of the pre-war level.
The post followed several days of administration statements claiming that U.S. naval operations, mine-clearing efforts and escorted shipping were breaking Iran's ability to restrict the waterway.
Trump had also said the United States now controlled the strait and that many oil-laden vessels were moving through day and night.
The 18 Million Number Has a Real Operational Basis
The administration did not pull the 18 million figure from nowhere.
Two U.S. officials familiar with the operation said the military escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying roughly 18 million barrels of oil through Hormuz during a wartime-high convoy operation on Tuesday, September 1.
CNN reported that operation as the largest amount of oil escorted through the strait in a single wartime movement since the conflict began.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright separately said that 17 million barrels of oil transited Hormuz on Monday, August 31, describing it as the highest daily level since the war sharply reduced flows.
Those figures show that the United States has succeeded in moving very large volumes through the strait on individual days.
A one-day record and a sustained daily average are different measurements. The administration's strongest figures describe specific days or escorted movements, not a verified long-run average of 18 million barrels per day.
The Administration's Own Multi-Day Number Is Much Lower
The most important qualification comes from the administration itself.
Although Wright cited 17 million barrels for Monday, he also said flows had been averaging around 8 million barrels per day over a multi-day period.
The Department of Energy later told Axios that nearly 12 million barrels of crude and petroleum products moved through the strait on Wednesday.
Those numbers are all consistent with a volatile recovery in which some days are exceptionally strong while others remain far below the pre-war norm.
They are not consistent with treating 18 million barrels per day as a stable, established average.
Independent Trackers Also Show a Recovery - but Not 18 Million as the Average
Private shipping intelligence services have measured a meaningful rebound, but their rolling estimates remain below Trump's headline figure.
Vortexa reported a 28-day moving average of roughly 8 million barrels per day of crude and petroleum products as of August 31.
TankerTrackers reported a preliminary seven-day average of about 5.94 million barrels per day for crude specifically.
Kpler's observed export data around the same period also showed oil volumes fluctuating well below the pre-war level, with analysts repeatedly warning that visible traffic was only part of the picture.
These differences do not necessarily mean one side is fabricating data. They often reflect different time windows, different definitions of what counts as an oil movement and different access to vessels operating without public transponders.
The best apples-to-apples comparison is a multi-day average of the same products using the same methodology. Comparing a record convoy day with a 7-day or 28-day tracker average can exaggerate the apparent disagreement.
Dark Tankers Make Hormuz Unusually Hard to Count
One reason the numbers are so far apart is that many ships are moving through Hormuz with their Automatic Identification System signals turned off or obscured.
Commercial trackers normally use AIS data together with satellite imagery, port records, cargo information and other intelligence to estimate oil movements.
The U.S. military has additional information that private firms do not possess, including convoy manifests, naval surveillance, airborne sensors and operational tracking of escorted vessels.
That means private systems can initially miss dark transits and later revise their estimates upward.
It also means the administration can see movements that are not immediately visible in public datasets.
For that reason, analysts have said a 17 million or 18 million barrel day is plausible even though sustained private estimates are lower.
Goldman Sachs Suggests the Hidden Flows Are Material
Goldman Sachs has offered one of the strongest arguments that conventional vessel tracking understates how much Gulf oil is actually reaching the market.
Using multiple methodologies and accounting for dark crossings and ship-to-ship transfers, Goldman estimated total Gulf oil and petroleum-product exports at roughly 15 million to 16 million barrels per day in late August.
That is much higher than visible AIS-only flows and shows how aggressively producers and shippers have adapted to the disruption.
But the Goldman figure is not identical to Trump's claim. It covers broader Gulf exports, not simply a sustained Strait of Hormuz transit average, and Goldman still described flows as materially below pre-war levels.
The bank's work therefore narrows the gap between the White House and conventional tracking data without fully validating an 18 million-barrel sustained daily rate.
The Pre-War 20 Million Figure Is Broadly Reasonable
The administration's baseline of about 20 million barrels per day before the war is broadly consistent with energy-market estimates for the strait under normal conditions.
Before hostilities disrupted shipping, Hormuz carried roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids and was the principal export route for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and much of the United Arab Emirates' Gulf production.
The precise total varies depending on whether the calculation includes crude oil alone, crude plus condensate, refined products and other petroleum liquids.
That accounting difference matters because some wartime claims refer to 'oil,' while others explicitly combine crude and petroleum products.
A clean comparison should use the same product categories on both sides.
The Recovery Is a Real Strategic Win for the United States
Even after the statistical caveats, the broader recovery is significant.
The White House said in late August that nearly 1,500 commercial vessels had moved through under U.S. protection and that Gulf oil exports had recovered to roughly two-thirds of pre-operation levels.
American forces have cleared mines from international shipping lanes, escorted commercial convoys and supported logistics that allow Gulf producers to move oil even when conventional commercial carriers are reluctant to enter the highest-risk parts of the strait.
The rise from the near-shutdown conditions earlier in the war to multi-million-barrel daily flows has reduced Iran's ability to use Hormuz as an absolute choke point.
That is a genuine accomplishment for the administration even if the strongest White House headline number proves to be a peak rather than a normal daily rate.
Iran's Own Oil Exports Have Been Hit Far Harder
The other side of Trump's strategy is the blockade of Iranian exports.
Independent shipping data indicate that Iranian crude exports have collapsed from around 2 million barrels per day earlier in the conflict to only a few hundred thousand barrels per day in August.
That has sharply reduced Tehran's access to foreign currency while non-Iranian Gulf producers have gradually found more ways to move cargoes through or around the contested shipping system.
This asymmetry is central to the administration's argument that time is increasingly working against Iran.
The United States does not need Hormuz to be fully normal for that strategy to impose severe economic pressure on Tehran. It needs friendly Gulf barrels to move at a much higher rate than Iranian exports do.
But September 7 Data Show How Quickly the Recovery Can Reverse
The most important update since Trump's September 3 post is that shipping conditions have worsened again.
Reuters reported on September 7 that an average of only 10 commodity vessels per day had transited Hormuz over the previous 10 days, the lowest moving average since May, according to Kpler.
Only two vessels passed through on Saturday and six on Sunday after U.S. forces struck Iranian oil tankers and Iran retaliated against tankers using routes it considered unauthorized.
Kpler also reported that no very large crude carrier had exited the strait since Wednesday.
Those developments show why it is risky to convert a single record day into a statement that normality has returned. The waterway remains an active military theater where traffic can surge and collapse within days.
As of September 7, the latest shipping data do not support describing Hormuz as stably back to pre-war traffic. The recovery remains real but fragile and highly volatile.
Oil Prices Still Reflect Significant Hormuz Risk
Markets are also signaling that traders do not yet consider the chokepoint fully normalized.
After the latest U.S.-Iranian attacks, Brent crude rose to roughly $97 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate moved above $92.
Those prices remain elevated because traders are balancing improving hidden and escorted flows against the risk that military escalation could again remove millions of barrels from the market.
Goldman Sachs has warned that a major intensification of attacks on Middle Eastern vessels could send oil much higher, while a genuine normalization of regional exports would push prices lower.
In other words, the market is treating Hormuz as partially functioning but still dangerous.
Why the White House and Trackers Can Both Be Partly Right
The dispute is best understood as a measurement problem layered on top of a political argument.
The White House has an incentive to emphasize record convoy days and demonstrate that U.S. military power has broken Iran's chokehold.
Iran has the opposite incentive: to portray the waterway as closed or under Tehran's control.
Private trackers generally emphasize repeatable multi-day datasets, but those datasets can miss dark vessels and may be revised weeks later when destination-port and customs information becomes available.
A final accounting may therefore show that the administration's peak-day numbers were real while its 'back to normal' framing was too optimistic.
That is why analysts say the full verdict will take time. Oil that truly left the Gulf will eventually appear in inventories, import records and refinery receipts elsewhere in the world.
What Can Actually Be Said With Confidence
Trump did post an official September 3 graphic saying Hormuz oil volumes were back to 18 million barrels per day, compared with 20 million before the war.
U.S. officials reported a wartime-high operation in which 40 commercial vessels carrying about 18 million barrels moved through the strait under U.S. military protection.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright separately said 17 million barrels moved through on Monday, August 31.
Those figures make it reasonable to say that the strait has reached near-pre-war oil volumes on at least some exceptionally strong days.
The administration's own rolling-average figure was much lower, around 8 million barrels per day, and the Department of Energy later cited about 12 million barrels for another day.
Vortexa's 28-day moving average was around 8 million barrels per day as of August 31, while TankerTrackers estimated about 5.94 million barrels per day of crude over seven days.
Private tracking is incomplete because a large share of wartime traffic is dark or uses ship-to-ship transfers, and U.S. military data may capture movements that commercial AIS systems initially miss.
Goldman Sachs estimated broader Gulf oil and product exports at roughly 15 million to 16 million barrels per day, confirming a substantial recovery while still placing the system below normal pre-war levels.
The roughly 20 million-barrel pre-war comparison is broadly reasonable, although exact totals depend on what petroleum products are counted.
The United States has achieved a real increase in non-Iranian Gulf oil movement and has simultaneously driven Iranian exports to a fraction of their earlier level.
But the latest September 7 data show that traffic has fallen again after renewed attacks, with Kpler's 10-day commodity-ship average dropping to 10 per day and no very large crude carrier exiting since Wednesday.
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So the strongest defensible headline is not that Trump's 18 million figure has been disproved, and not that Hormuz is fully back to normal.
It is that Trump can point to a genuine record-day breakthrough in Hormuz oil movements, while independent and even administration multi-day data show that the recovery remains well below a sustained 18 million barrels per day and can reverse quickly when the fighting intensifies.
