Strait of Hormuz Tanker Traffic Returns to Normal, Scoring a Quiet Win for Trump’s War Effort

While Iran’s boasting and threats are making headlines, tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is reaching pre-Operation Epic Fury levels. It’s another overlooked success that, although not yet reflected in gasoline prices, brings the conflict closer to a resolution that favors America.Kpler, which tracks maritime shipping, counted an average of 17.5 million barrels of oil passing through the Strait every day this week — 98 percent of pre-war levels, according to JPMorgan. Diesel and gasoline were at three million barrels, 58 percent of normal, putting total petroleum exports at 89 percent of 2025 levels as Iran’s neighbors pump at full throttle.“We note a divergence,” Goldman Sachs commodity analysts said in a note on Tuesday, “between the fall of Iranian exports and the rise of exports of other Persian Gulf producers. Saudi estimated exports more than doubled in September and rose above their 2025 average.”“The Middle East’s oil export arteries are flowing again,” JP Morgan’s commodity analysts said in a note published on Thursday, calling it “a remarkable recovery for a region still at war.” The combined nations are shipping 20.5 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, just shy of last year’s 22.4 million.The change of regime in Venezuela helped, too. Under the strongman, President Hugo Chavez, it exported about 972,000 barrels a day. Output is now up 22 percent to 1.25 million and rising. Meanwhile, the United States Navy blockade excludes Iranian oil and leaves the country with no good options for what to do with it.On April 26, President Trump said that Iran had four days before its storage facilities hit maximum capacity. The co-founder of MarketWatch, Derek Reisfield, told the New York Post in April that idling production would cause “irreversible” and “permanent damage” to Iran’s oil fields. The country can’t sell its black gold, store it, or leave it in the ground.“Iran loaded ZERO crude oil onto tankers in September,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Thursday on X. “The Trump Administration is cutting off the Iranian regime’s most critical source of revenue. Operation Economic Outcast is severing the economic lifelines that have allowed Tehran to finance its terrorist agenda.”U.S. Navy escorts, pipeline bypasses, and ship-to-ship transfers beyond missile reach have further weakened Iran’s military and economic positions. Three weeks ago, as this columnist wrote in The New York Sun, America’s armed forces cleared the last mine from the Strait. Missile launchers are being destroyed and interceptors knock down projectiles.Once unknown, the danger Iran poses is now routine, and there’s “increasing ability” within the oil industry, JPMorgan noted, “to operate under sustained risk.” On Tuesday and Wednesday, three Liberian-flagged tankers were hit by what the shipping intelligence firm Marisks called “unknown projectiles,” but the traffic kept on sailing.Supertankers are evading Tehran with tactics like switching off transponders to escape detection and offloading oil to shuttle tankers that are smaller and much more maneuverable, making them harder to hit. Dividing cargo also avoids putting all a producer’s oil in one tank, so to speak, in the event a ship is sunk — something Tehran has achieved only on social media.Much was made of the Houthi drone attack of September 10 on the pipelines linking Saudi Arabia’s largest oilfields to the Red Sea. Yet operations are back at half capacity and repairs are proceeding. The militia hasn’t been able to strike again or to close the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait to funnel tankers where Iran can threaten them.Iran has bragged about controlling the Strait for months, backed by press reports relying on data from Kpler, which hadn’t updated its methodology to reflect the new normal. After Energy Secretary Christopher Wright pointed out that nine million barrels of oil were passing through the Strait daily in August, Kpler started counting shuttles and ships without transponders.Once Kpler accounted for these “dark transits,” instead of a trickle of oil passing through the Strait, it saw a supply that was growing each day. Today, that flow has turned into a gusher. Iran’s geographical advantage has been neutralized, which bodes well for America’s war effort and heralds lower prices at the pump.

Strait of Hormuz Tanker Traffic Returns to Normal, Scoring a Quiet Win for Trump’s War Effort

Strait of Hormuz Tanker Traffic Returns to Normal, Scoring a Quiet Win for Trump’s War Effort

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