Hormuz oil shipments up sharply under US Navy protection. Oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz are rising under the protection of US Navy carrier strike groups and their escorts, the highest level for several months.
According to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz increased to just under 11 million barrels per day over a seven day average, as he told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. "We continue to grow the oil and oil products coming out of the Gulf," he said, adding that the US Navy is doing "a phenomenal job" in securing the shipping lanes through the Strait. This compares to 9 million bpd as Wright noted in a CNN interview a few days prior, and 6.1 million bpd recorded during the 60-day MOU between the US and Iran that expired last month, according to Kpler shipping analytics.
It is a big job, and they are getting it done. U.S. Central Command confirmed it has helped move more than 800 million barrels of crude oil and assisted more than 1,600 vessels to safely transit the Strait of Hormuz. The Navy is operating under a layered defense architecture that includes the aircraft carriers USS George Washington and USS George H.W. Bush, as well as helicopters, fighters, and surface drones operating at night to find and engage Iranian drones, speedboats, and minelayers that have targeted tanker convoys.
"Carriers don't need to be in a place to blockade ships to close a channel, but their presence is highly relevant in terms of scouting and attacking entities in the channel," said James Holmes, chair of the maritime strategy program at the Naval War College. The two carriers, he noted, "enable a layered defense against Iranian attack using missiles, speedboats, and minelayers."
Even at the current months-high, Hormuz is flowing at only about 70 percent of pre-conflict capacity. The waterway carried approximately 15 million barrels per day before February 28, accounting for roughly 20 percent of global oil consumption. That gap remains consequential for global energy markets, with Brent crude trading above $100 per barrel and U.S. pump prices averaging $4.30 per gallon as of Friday, according to AAA — more than a dollar above the same period last year.
The Navy is not escorting individual ships but is protecting tanker groups moving in convoy formation through the strait. The precise operational details of the protection scheme remain classified, Energy Secretary Wright noted when pressed for specifics.
