20th August 2026
When the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed following the outbreak of the Iran conflict, the implications for the world oil market appeared frighteningly simple. Around a fifth of the world's oil normally passes through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. If that flow stopped, the world would suddenly be short of millions of barrels of oil every day.
Yet several months into the crisis, something rather unexpected has happened.
Oil is still getting out of the Gulf in surprisingly large quantities.
The Strait of Hormuz is certainly not operating normally. Indeed, the latest shipping data suggest that it is operating at only a tiny fraction of its former level. On Tuesday, just six commodity vessels passed through the Strait, according to Kpler data reported by Reuters. That compares with more than 130 vessel movements a day before the conflict.
And yet the world has not run out of Gulf oil.
That raises a question which is becoming increasingly important for the oil price, for businesses and ultimately for consumers: how much oil is actually getting out, and how is it managing to do so?
The answer is far less straightforward than the headlines might suggest.
One of the most remarkable claims came from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright earlier this month. He said that almost 9 million barrels of oil a day were currently getting through the Strait of Hormuz. He added that another 5 million to 7 million barrels a day were leaving the region through upgraded pipelines and export facilities, putting total oil flows from the Middle East at around 15 million barrels a day.
If those figures are correct, the situation is nowhere near as severe as it appeared at the beginning of the conflict. They would imply that around three-quarters of the region's pre-war exports are reaching the international market.
There is, however, a considerable problem with that calculation.
Independent companies which track the movement of oil tankers are producing much lower numbers.
Kpler estimated that only about 1.74 million barrels a day were actually passing through Hormuz, while LSEG's estimate was considerably higher at 6.98 million barrels a day. When oil leaving the Gulf by other routes is included, Kpler estimated total flows at around 9.33 million barrels a day, with LSEG putting the figure at approximately 12.26 million.
Before the conflict, the comparable figure was about 18.7 million barrels a day.
Those differences are enormous.
They mean that nobody can currently say with complete confidence how much Gulf oil is reaching the international market. The American figure suggests that perhaps 15 million barrels a day are getting out. The independent tanker trackers suggest something closer to 9 million to 12 million.
Either way, though, the important point is that the amount getting out is far greater than might have been expected when the crisis began.
Part of the explanation is that the Gulf's oil industry was never entirely dependent on Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has pipelines capable of moving crude across the country to the Red Sea, where it can be loaded onto tankers without passing through Hormuz. The United Arab Emirates also has infrastructure allowing oil to reach the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman without having to make the dangerous journey through the Strait.
These alternative routes suddenly became enormously valuable.
There is also a more complicated and less visible part of the story involving tankers themselves.
Ships do not necessarily have to make one straightforward journey from an oil terminal in the Gulf to a refinery in Asia. Oil can be transferred between vessels, with one tanker taking the cargo out of a dangerous area and another continuing the journey. Such ship-to-ship transfers make the oil trade much harder to monitor and help explain why different tracking companies can produce such different estimates.
China's major state-owned shipping companies, for example, have been avoiding Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb because of the risks. Instead, tankers have been involved in ship-to-ship transfers around Fujairah and Omani waters.
This is effectively creating an alternative oil transportation system around the edges of the crisis.
It is also worth remembering just how dramatic the situation looked at the beginning.
In March, Reuters reported that oil exports from the eight major Middle Eastern countries around the Gulf had fallen to about 9.7 million barrels a day, compared with 25.1 million barrels a day before the conflict. That represented a fall of around 61 per cent. At the same time, more than 50 million barrels of crude were reported to be sitting in floating storage because it could not be moved normally.
The industry has therefore spent months adapting.
Production has been cut where storage facilities became full. Alternative pipelines have been used more intensively. Ports outside the Strait have taken on greater importance. Tankers have changed their routes and, increasingly, have used ship-to-ship transfers.
What looked initially like an almost complete interruption of Gulf oil exports has become something much more complicated: a partially functioning oil export system operating around a major maritime blockage.
That distinction matters enormously for the price of oil.
If virtually all the 18 million-plus barrels normally leaving the region had remained trapped, it would be difficult to imagine Brent crude remaining around $90 a barrel. The physical shortage would have been vastly greater.
Instead, Brent was around $91 a barrel today. That is still expensive and represents a substantial increase in the cost of energy, but it is a very different proposition from the $120-plus prices that briefly characterised the most acute phase of the crisis.
There is another reason why the market may have been able to cope better than expected.
The world's oil system is not simply a matter of barrels produced today being consumed tomorrow. There are inventories, floating storage, alternative suppliers, refinery adjustments and changes in demand. When one source is disrupted, other producers can sometimes increase shipments and refineries can alter the type of crude they process.
We are now seeing some of those mechanisms at work.
American and Indian refineries, for example, have been increasing fuel exports as other sources of supply have been disrupted. India in particular has become an important swing supplier to Asian markets, helping compensate for some of the Middle Eastern disruption.
But none of this means that the Hormuz problem has gone away.
Quite the opposite.
Today's shipping figures demonstrate just how abnormal the situation remains. Six commodity vessels passing through the Strait in one day is tiny compared with the normal flow. Major shipping companies continue to regard the route as too dangerous, while governments and military forces disagree over whether the Strait should technically be regarded as open or closed.
This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the entire crisis.
The Strait can be technically open while being commercially unusable.
A tanker owner may be legally able to pass through the waterway, but if the insurance premium is enormous, the crew faces unacceptable danger and the vessel risks attack, the economic reality is that the ship will stay away.
That is why simply counting ships is not enough. We need to know how much oil is actually being loaded, where it is going and how much is sitting in storage waiting for a safer opportunity.
And that brings us back to the extraordinary difference between the American estimate and the independent tracking figures.
If Chris Wright is right and around 15 million barrels a day are leaving the region, the oil market has adapted much more successfully than many expected.
If Kpler is closer to the truth and only around 9 million barrels a day are reaching the international market, the world is still missing nearly half of the region's normal exports.
The difference between those two scenarios is equivalent to millions of barrels every day.
That is not a statistical curiosity. It is enough oil to make a very substantial difference to the price at the petrol pump, the cost of diesel for hauliers and fishermen, the price of aviation fuel and eventually the cost of transporting almost everything sold in Britain.
For Scottish businesses, particularly those operating in rural areas where transport distances are greater and alternatives to road transport are limited, this matters.
A £10 or £20 change in the price of a barrel does not stay in the oil market. It eventually finds its way into haulage costs, fishing costs, heating, manufacturing, food distribution and household bills.
The irony is that the world may currently be getting a misleading sense of security from the fact that oil is still flowing.
The Gulf has demonstrated extraordinary resilience. But resilience is not the same thing as normality.
The oil market is currently functioning with a huge amount of improvisation around a strategic waterway that remains effectively unusable for much of the world's commercial shipping.
The big question for the weeks ahead is therefore not simply whether the Strait of Hormuz is open.
It is how much oil can continue to escape the Gulf while it remains effectively closed — and how long that alternative system can operate.
If the answer is 15 million barrels a day, the world oil market may have found a way around one of its greatest vulnerabilities.
If the true figure is closer to 9 million, then the apparent calm in the oil market could prove much more fragile than it looks.
And that is why the difference between those two numbers may be one of the most important oil-market stories to watch over the coming weeks.