Tanker Trackers Say Hormuz Oil Flows Are Nearing Pre-War Levels

Oil prices eased this week on reports that crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz are approaching the roughly 20 million barrels a day of crude and petroleum products that moved through the waterway before fighting disrupted shipping earlier this year, according to tanker-tracking data cited by multiple outlets. But the trackers themselves don’t fully agree on the number — a reminder of how hard it still is to get a clean read on Gulf oil flows months after the worst of the disruption.

Different Trackers, Different Numbers

Kpler puts crude-only transits through the strait at a weekly average of around 11.2 million barrels a day, with roughly 80% of the region’s unprocessed crude and condensate now moving that route again. TankerTrackers.com calculates a lower figure, around 7.4 million barrels a day this month, while Vortexa’s provisional count is close to 7.9 million. JPMorgan, looking at the wider picture rather than Hormuz alone, puts total Middle East crude exports — including volumes that bypass the strait entirely — at about 17.5 million barrels a day, or roughly 98% of pre-war levels. The spread between those numbers reflects differences in what each firm counts: crude only versus crude-plus-condensate, Hormuz transits alone versus all regional export routes.

More Barrels Are Skipping the Strait Altogether

Part of the recovery has come from producers routing around Hormuz rather than through it. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq all expanded bypass capacity during the disruption — Saudi Aramco leaning more on its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, the UAE using its pipeline to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, and Iraq moving more barrels through the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Roughly 40% of the region’s crude now leaves without crossing Hormuz at all, up from about 17% before the fighting began. TheDailyEnergy.com has tracked that shift as it happened, including Saudi Arabia’s restart of Red Sea crude loadings at Yanbu after a pipeline attack in late September.

Crude Is Back; Diesel Isn’t

The recovery is uneven by product. While crude volumes are closing in on pre-war levels, refined-fuel flows — diesel in particular — remain constrained, keeping upward pressure on fuel costs even as crude benchmarks ease. That gap is why China moved to halt most of its October fuel exports to protect its own diesel supply, and why the G7 agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from strategic reserves over four months. The strait has not been free of incident either: three tankers were struck by unidentified projectiles in the strait in early October, even as the broader volume data points toward recovery.

A Fragile Kind of Normal

Traders are treating the volume recovery as good news for crude supply without treating the underlying security situation as resolved. The bypass infrastructure that producers built up during the disruption is likely to stay in use regardless of how the political situation evolves, permanently changing the share of Gulf crude that depends on the strait — a shift that could matter the next time tensions in the region flare.

Sources: Oil Price, “Oil Prices Fall as Reports Say Hormuz Crude Flows Top Pre-War Levels,” Oct. 5, 2026; Kpler, TankerTrackers.com, Vortexa and JPMorgan tanker-tracking estimates as compiled by IBTimes UK and other outlets, early October 2026; International Energy Agency pre-war Hormuz volume baseline.

Illustrative image. Photo: NASA Johnson Space Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — source