Military Helping Move Millions of Barrels of Oil out of Persian Gulf, US Energy Secretary Says

The figure represents about half of the flow of oil that has been stuck ​in the Strait of Hormuz since the Iran war started, he said.

An oil tanker navigating the sea on Qeshm Island, Iran, in the Strait of Hormuz, on April 28, 2026. Asghar Besharati/Getty Images

The U.S. military is helping move more than 7 million barrels of oil per day out of the Persian Gulf amid tensions with Iran and as the standstill in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Friday.

Wright said during a Bloomberg News interview that Iran’s only leverage in negotiations is “to interrupt the flow of energy out of the Persian Gulf” during hostilities with the United States.