Oil flow through Hormuz has not stopped – what the US reported

US Navy Admiral Bradley Cooper stated that about one billion barrels of oil have been transported through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two months. With the support of US military forces, passage was ensured for approximately two thousand commercial vessels. Cooper clarified that these are supplies from countries cooperating with the US. Meanwhile, since July, not a single barrel of oil has been exported from Iran. The volume of exports through the strait matches pre-war levels and even exceeds them: under normal conditions, about 420 million barrels of oil passed through Hormuz monthly, excluding Iranian supplies. Despite the maintenance of significant transport volumes, oil prices remain high—the benchmark Brent crude is around $103 per barrel. Several factors influence prices: the escalation of the Saudi-Houthi conflict, attacks on the overland oil pipeline, the lack of a political process in the US-Iran conflict, the exclusion of Iranian oil from global trade, and attacks on Russian refineries. High prices are linked not so much to actual shortages as to concerns about the stability of future supplies. The admiral's statement may reduce market anxiety, but its impact on oil prices will become clear in the coming days.