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 ha...