How the U.S. Navy Is Helping Get Oil Through the Strait of Hormuz

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. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .