Have Middle East Oil Flows Rebounded to 15 Million Bpd as U.S. Claims?

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed that oil exports from the Middle East have reached 15 million barrels per day (bpd) and even surpassed the pre-war average of 20 million bpd on Sunday. However, vessel-tracking services and commodity analysts are finding it difficult to align these figures with their observations of vessel traffic in the region.

According to the data compiled by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell, oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz are at most half the volume cited by Secretary Wright, with tanker-monitoring data indicating a gap of between 3 million bpd and 5 million bpd. Most vessel-tracking companies estimate only about 9 million bpd leaving the region via all export channels so far this month.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright maintains that his claim is backed by the "best available data" related to oil and oil products leaving the Arabian Gulf, but it remains unclear how this data is compiled and analyzed.