U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American forces have helped Gulf partners export more than 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the summer, announcing the milestone as its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, flew over a waterway Iran has claimed to control since the war began in late February.
More than 3,000 commercial vessels have crossed the strait with support from CENTCOM forces over the last six months, the command said in a statement released during Cooper's visit. It said more than 95 percent of the ships navigating the strait in recent months had made it through safely despite what it called the "unwarranted aggression" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Cooper watched commercial traffic from a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook and met with service members who supported the mission that cleared the strait's international shipping lanes of sea mines CENTCOM says the Guard laid. Traffic has gathered momentum in the months since that clearance, the command said. "Today, primary transit routes in the Strait of Hormuz remain free and clear of Iranian sea mines thanks to incredible efforts by our people," Cooper said.
"We continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Gulf partners and the shipping industry," he added, saying U.S. forces "remain intensely focused on keeping commercial traffic flowing" as they work with other American agencies, the Gulf Cooperation Council and shipping companies.
Figures from outside the military point the same way. At least 16.5 million barrels of oil a day left the region in September, not counting Iran, matching the prewar average, according to the market intelligence firm Kpler, as reported by Al Jazeera. Analysts have attributed the recovery to offshore ship-to-ship transfers, U.S. military escorts and greater use of pipelines.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month that Iran had "lost complete control" of the strait. "There's almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began," he said, in remarks cited by the Hurriyet Daily News.
The White House went further in a release on fuel prices issued Sunday, saying that thanks to the strength of U.S. forces and President Trump's leadership, "more oil is leaving through the Hormuz Strait than before the conflict." The release did not say what data supported that statement, and Kpler's September figures put flows at the prewar average.
About a fifth of the world's oil exports normally move through the strait. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, Tehran has demanded that ships obtain its permission to pass and has targeted vessels that tried to cross without it. An April 8 ceasefire between Iran and the United States halted the heaviest fighting, though sporadic exchanges of fire continued in and around the strait before subsiding in recent weeks.
Attacks on merchant shipping have not stopped. The Revolutionary Guard has stepped up its attacks on vessels in the strait in recent weeks, The Maritime Executive reported, though they do not appear to have reduced the flow of traffic. No merchant sailors were killed in the strait in October, after five deaths in September, and 12 sailors were injured on Oct. 5 when a projectile hit the Panama-flagged tanker On Peace. The trade publication also noted that the 95 percent figure comes from CENTCOM and that completed transits are not showing up in any reliable open-source database.
Prices remain well above where they stood before the war. Brent crude was at about $114.50 a barrel on Sunday, Al Jazeera reported, against a settlement of $72.48 on Feb. 27, the day before the strikes began.
Iran maintains that reopening the strait depends on seven conditions, including an end to the U.S. naval blockade of its ports, relief from sanctions on its oil exports and a halt to hostilities on all fronts. Parliament Speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf has said Washington must meet them first, and negotiations have reportedly stalled over those demands, according to Arab News.