Battle for control of Red Sea, attacks on energy infrastructure temper news of rising oil flow

Middle East oil exports, excluding those from Iran, surpassed their pre-war levels last week, despite attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler.

For the first time since the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive against Iran at the end of February, the weekly average of shipments rose for several days above the pre-conflict average of 18 million barrels per day.

Crude oil exports reached pre-war levels in September, with at least 16.5 million barrels leaving the region excluding Iran, Kpler said.

“Forty percent now bypass Hormuz, and most crude crossing the strait changes tankers offshore,” Kpler said, adding that most of the oil flowed through Saudi and United Arab Emirates pipelines.

Those figures include flows via the Red Sea, a route increasingly used to bypass the blockade Iran is attempting to impose on the strait, through which around a fifth of the world’s petroleum supplies crossed before the conflict.

Iran still claims control over the strait, and ships without its authorization risk coming under attack, but more and more are making it out, and alternative routes meant to bypass the waterway are operating at full capacity.

Despite the rebound, experts stressed that the situation is far from normal, and Iran is still being deprived of a large share of its own exports by a U.S. counterblockade of Iranian ports.