U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright says Middle East oil exports have rebounded to 15 million barrels per day, even topping the pre-war average on one day. Tanker-tracking firms say actual flows out of the region are running at roughly half that figure, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration itself still calls Hormuz traffic "severely constrained."
A 15 million bpd claim meets tanker data
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said this week that oil exports from the Middle East have rebounded to 15 million barrels per day, and even topped the pre-war average of 20 million bpd on Sunday. But vessel-tracking services and commodity analysts say they cannot square that number with what they are seeing on the water.
Ship-tracking data shows oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz running at, at best, half the volume Wright cited. Across all Middle East export channels, tanker-monitoring companies report a gap of between 3 million bpd and 5 million bpd versus the official claim. Most trackers estimate only about 9 million bpd leaving the region so far this month.
Officials and analysts clash over the numbers
Wright doubled down, saying the Department of Energy, working with the U.S. military, maintains the best available data on oil leaving the Arabian Gulf, and argued that private trackers undercount ships moving covertly through the strait. Private tracking firms, however, put current flows out of the Strait of Hormuz at up to 5 million bpd at best. They put the whole Middle East at 9 million bpd to 10 million bpd. According to the EIA: Hormuz traffic remains "severely constrained", and the agency assumes that will hold through August.
Reuters columnist Clyde Russell notes that import data in the coming five to six weeks should show which side is closer to the truth, as exports leaving the Middle East now would begin appearing in import data in various countries. Yet it is also possible the U.S. administration is talking up an outcome it wants in the Iran conflict, or trying to talk down crude oil prices ahead of the midterm elections.
Gasoline stays expensive regardless
Whatever the true export figure, drivers are not seeing relief. The national average price of gasoline stayed above $4 per gallon this week, and AAA said crude prices are keeping pump prices higher than normal for this time of year even as demand softens. GasBuddy's Patrick de Haan noted the cheapest Aug. 13 average since 2008 was $2.13 a gallon in 2016, while this year's $4.06 a gallon is the most expensive on record for that date.
Source: Oilprice.com
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