Oil Flows Through Hormuz Rise Despite Mounting Attacks on Tankers

Oil shipments from the Gulf have staged a striking recovery in recent weeks, even as the Strait of Hormuz remains one of the most dangerous maritime corridors on the planet. Maritime experts and tracking firms report that crude exports from the Middle East have climbed back toward pre-war levels, a rebound that has surprised analysts given the steady drumbeat of attacks on commercial vessels.

According to data compiled by the maritime intelligence firm Kpler, Gulf oil flows excluding Iran recovered to more than 81 percent of their pre-war levels during September. Crude exports from the broader Middle East even exceeded pre-war volumes on 14 separate days that month, a notable milestone for a region whose energy infrastructure has been under persistent threat.

The recovery has not come without cost. Attacks on tankers have intensified in tandem with the rising export volumes, forcing shipping companies to absorb higher freight, insurance, and security expenses. On Tuesday, India's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that 12 crew members aboard a Panama-flagged tanker were injured when an unknown projectile struck the vessel as it transited the strait.

Before the US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz routinely accommodated roughly 125 large commercial vessels each day. Shipments passing through the narrow waterway accounted for approximately 20 percent of global crude and liquefied natural gas supplies, underscoring its importance to international energy markets.

In retaliation for US and Israeli strikes, Iran effectively shut down the strait, while Washington maintained a blockade on Iranian ports. The dual pressures transformed the waterway into a flashpoint, yet oil has continued to flow through a combination of alternative infrastructure and increasingly creative logistical arrangements.

The security picture remains grim. Shipping intelligence service Marisks has documented at least seven incidents involving tankers over the past week alone. On October 1, the Kuwaiti-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier MT Kazimah III caught fire after being struck while transiting the strait; five crew members were safely rescued. Three days later, the Liberian-flagged Aframax tanker Lipsi was hit northeast of Oman's Jazirat Umm al-Fayarin, sustaining damage to its engine room but no casualties.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency has reported at least one attack per day in either the Strait of Hormuz or the Gulf of Aden since October 2. The Gulf of Aden has seen Iran-backed Houthi forces targeting shipping linked to Saudi Arabia. On Monday, UKMTO reported that a tanker entering the strait near Oman was hailed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and ordered to reverse course or face attack.

Despite these dangers, export volumes have surged. Kpler's provisional data shows the seven-day moving average for Middle East crude exports reached 18.3 million barrels per day on September 30, compared with an average of roughly 18 million bpd during the 12 months preceding the war. Vortexa, another tracking firm, estimated the 14-day moving average for Middle East crude and condensate exports at 18.6 million bpd.

Not all of that oil, however, actually passes through Hormuz. Kpler estimates that about 40 percent of regional exports now bypass the strait entirely, while much of the crude that does cross is transferred between vessels offshore. The result is a complex, multi-layered system for moving oil out of the Gulf that did not exist before the conflict.

The increased flows have contributed to downward pressure on oil prices. Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell 0.75 percent to $99.57 a barrel on Tuesday, while US West Texas Intermediate dropped 1.2 percent to $88.37 a barrel, according to Oilprice.com data.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the apparent increase in oil flows, asserting that Washington controls the strait and that American forces are successfully protecting vessels transiting Hormuz. Iran has rejected those claims, describing the volume of oil passing through the waterway as "negligible" and insisting it retains effective control over the strait.

The recovery has been made possible largely by Saudi Arabia's use of alternative export infrastructure. The kingdom's East-West pipeline carries crude from fields in the eastern part of the country to the Yanbu port on the Red Sea, allowing significant volumes to reach international markets without passing through Hormuz.

Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told Al Jazeera that two factors explain the rising availability of Middle Eastern crude: Saudi Arabia's effective use of the East-West pipeline and ship-to-ship transfers conducted around the Strait of Hormuz. Those transfers involve smaller shuttle boats that frequently turn off their transponders to avoid detection, making them difficult to track and adding a layer of opacity to the market.

The arrangement raises questions about sustainability. Ship-to-ship transfers are logistically cumbersome, costly, and vulnerable to disruption. The East-West pipeline has finite capacity. And the continued attacks threaten to drive insurance premiums and freight rates high enough to make the trade economically unviable for some operators.

For now, the flows continue. But the combination of escalating violence, opaque logistics, and competing claims of control over the strait suggests that the current recovery in Gulf oil exports rests on fragile foundations. Whether it can endure depends on factors that no single party—not Washington, not Tehran, and not the shipping companies navigating these waters—fully controls.