With Iran making ship traffic
perilous, a U.S. operation offers a way out for some energy exports, stealthily
shepherding tankers on dangerous journeys.
·
Sharp
decline in oil flows: Before the war, around 15 million barrels of crude per day
passed through the Strait of Hormuz. During the conflict, Iranian attacks
sharply reduced tanker traffic.
·
US
protection restores part of the flow:
Since May, the U.S. military has been escorting/protecting
tankers through the southern part of the strait near Oman.
About 4 million
barrels/day moved through this route in June, rising to roughly
5 million barrels/day in
July.
·
Major
impact on global oil markets: By
keeping millions of barrels moving, the U.S. operation has helped prevent
another major surge in global oil prices.
·
Highly
resource-intensive operation:
Protecting the tankers requires U.S. warships,
helicopters, aircraft, missiles and drones-interception systems.
More than 1,000 ships
have been assisted, according to U.S. Central Command.
·
Iran
continues attacking protected shipping:
At least 15 ships using
the southern route have been hit since early June, injuring 16
mariners and killing two. Another vessel was attacked near Oman this week,
killing a crew member.
·
Iran
seeks greater control:
Tehran is demanding permanent
control over ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, raising
the possibility that the security threat could persist even after the war.
·
Most
major shipping companies remain cautious:
Many operators continue avoiding Hormuz until there is a durable cease-fire,
leaving traffic well
below pre-war levels.
·
Two-pronged
U.S. strategy: Besides protecting outbound
tankers, the U.S. Navy is restricting
ships visiting Iranian ports, significantly limiting Iran's oil
exports and revenue.
·
Alternative
routes also helping: Gulf producers are
increasing the use of Middle
Eastern pipelines to bypass the strait and move oil to markets.
·
Shipping
companies taking significant risks:
Greek tanker operator Dynacom
used the Oman route; two of its tankers were hit on July 19, with one
subsequently abandoned.
·
ADNOC
heavily exposed: UAE oil giant ADNOC reported that 18
of its vessels had been attacked, causing one crew death and 20 injuries.
·
U.S.
logistics have become harder:
Iranian attacks effectively destroyed the U.S. Navy's main logistics base in Bahrain. Supply
vessels now have to travel to Diego
Garcia, adding more than five days each way.
·
Large
U.S. naval presence: Around 20 U.S. warships are
operating in the Gulf of Oman, including aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln
and USS George H.W. Bush,
along with destroyers.
·
Long-term
sustainability is uncertain:
Maintaining such a large naval force is difficult because regional bases remain
vulnerable to Iranian missiles and the U.S. has only 11 aircraft carriers,
many of which are unavailable or undergoing maintenance.
·
Key
takeaway: The U.S. military has
succeeded in keeping a significant
southern corridor open, restoring roughly one-third of pre-war
Hormuz oil flows. However, the operation is costly, manpower-intensive and not fully effective at
preventing attacks, while Iran retains the ability to disrupt
shipping and global oil supplies.
[ABS News Service/20.08.2026]
Only a few oil tankers braved Iran’s attacks to go through
the Strait of Hormuz for much of the war, leading to a drastic reduction in how
much crude reached world markets.
But since May, the U.S. military has played a crucial role
in getting millions of barrels of oil through the strait, helping to keep oil prices
from rising further.
The operation stealthily shepherds tankers through the southern
part of the strait on routes close to Oman. Iran effectively controls which ships
go through its side of the strait, opposite Oman.
Before the war, about 15 million barrels of crude oil a day
went through the Strait of Hormuz. In July, tankers using U.S. protected routes
transported around five million barrels of oil daily out of the Persian Gulf, according
to analysts.
“It’s one of the surprising successes,” said Michelle Wiese
Bockmann, a shipping analyst at Windward, a maritime analysis
firm. “They have been extraordinarily effective in keeping that southern corridor
operating, despite the attacks.”
But the U.S. effort, which Iran opposes, has come at a cost.
The U.S. military is deploying significant resources to get
a limited amount of oil through the strait — something it did not have to do before
the war, when tankers sailed freely through the waterway.
“It’s extremely labor intensive
to provide for that kind of persistent defense,” said
Joshua Tallis, an analyst at the Center
for Naval Analyses.
To try to protect vessels on the southern corridor, Central
Command uses a range of weapons that can intercept Iranian drones and missiles.
Ship operators say they register any planned trips through the strait with the U.S.
military, and then report possible threats or attacks as they occur. The United
States uses ships, helicopters and planes to launch weapons to intercept attacks.
It has helped over 1,000 ships transit the strait, according to Central Command.
The U.S. tanker protection operation has drawn attacks by
Iran. At least 15 ships taking the southern routes have been hit since the start
of June, injuring 16 mariners and killing two, according to a New York Times analysis
of data collected by the International Maritime Organization, a part of the United
Nations. Another ship was struck this week while it was sailing close to Oman, killing
a crew member, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an entity administered
by Britain’s Royal Navy, said on Tuesday.
The Iranian military retains the ability to escalate its attacks
on all shipping in the area, as well as on oil and gas facilities in Gulf countries.
And Iran is demanding permanent control over ship traffic in the strait, something
it did not have before the war.
“Iran’s threat over the strait will remain significant for
the foreseeable future,” said Mona Yacoubian, a director of the Middle East Program
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
a research organization.
Many large shipping companies have chosen to stay away from
the strait until there is a lasting cease-fire, and traffic through the strait remains
far below what it was before the war.
The tanker protection effort in the southern corridor is one
of the two major U.S. operations aimed at loosening Iran’s grip on the strait. The
other is a U.S. Navy blockade of ships visiting Iranian ports, which has greatly
restricted Iranian oil leaving the gulf, and deprived Tehran of much needed oil
revenue.
Helping the tankers get out through the southern corridor
increases the supply of crude to world markets and reduces the likelihood of oil
prices spiking to the heights they reached earlier in the war. Gulf oil is also
bypassing the strait by being pumped in greater volumes through Middle Eastern pipelines.
Ms. Wiese Bockmann, the shipping
analyst, said the amount of oil going through had been rising since May, when the
tanker protection initiative began. Roughly four million barrels a day exited in
June, rising to some five million a day in July, she said.
Ships that navigated the strait with the assistance of Central
Command, the U.S. military unit running the operation, typically turn off their
transponders to avoid detection by Iran. That makes it harder for firms that track
vessels to get a full picture of traffic in the strait.
A small number of shipping operators have been willing to
use the Oman route. One of those is Dynacom, a Greek company.
Two of its tankers were hit on July 19, one of which was abandoned, according to
the International Maritime Organization. Dynacom did not
respond to requests for comment.
The United Arab Emirates’ government-owned oil giant, the
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, is making considerable efforts to move
oil on the southern route.
Its vessels have also been frequently struck. ADNOC said last
week that 18 of its vessels had been attacked in the war, resulting in one fatality
and 20 injuries to crew members.
“We take extensive measures to protect our people and our
assets and adapt our operations to the evolving security environment,” a spokesman
for ADNOC’s logistics arm said in a statement, declining to say whether the company’s
ships go through with U.S. protection.
Resupplying those missions has become far more challenging
since the Navy’s base in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, was effectively destroyed
by Iranian attacks that began on the first day of the war. As a result of losing
their main logistics hub in the Middle East, Navy supply ships now must travel to
the tiny island of Diego Garcia — a British territory about 1,100 miles southwest
of the southern tip of India. The journey takes more than five days each way.
The Navy has said it has about 20 warships in the Gulf of
Oman, including the aircraft carriers Abraham Lincoln and George H.W. Bush, the
destroyers escorting them, and even more destroyers enforcing President Trump’s
renewed blockade of Iranian ports.
How the Navy intends to keep such a large force of warships
in the Middle East into the future is unclear, as all of the nearby ports in the
region are within range of Iranian missiles. And although the service has more than
70 destroyers in the fleet, it has just 11 carriers. Not all of them are available
to serve in the war, as some are undergoing maintenance in shipyards and one is
scheduled for decommissioning next year.
The Lincoln, for one, has been at sea since Nov. 21 without
a port call that would allow the crew to rest, and will need a significant amount
of maintenance before it can deploy again. The Japan-based carrier George Washington
is coming to relieve the Lincoln, but a relief for the Norfolk-based Bush — which
deployed on March 31 — has not been publicly identified.
Given that Iran has regularly struck ships using the southern
route, the U.S. protection has not been impregnable. But Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman
for Central Command, said: “It doesn’t mean the defense
is ineffective. As you can see in the grand scheme, more ships are moving through
than before.”