How much oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz?

In normal conditions, roughly 20 million barrels of crude oil, condensate, and petroleum products move through the Strait of Hormuz every day. Against global daily consumption of approximately 100 million barrels, that is close to one barrel in five. Measured against seaborne oil trade alone, it is about one barrel in four. No other single chokepoint comes close to that combination of absolute volume and concentration.

Qatar ships almost all of its liquefied natural gas through the strait, which makes Hormuz responsible for approximately a quarter of global LNG trade as well. Unlike crude oil, LNG has no viable overland or pipeline bypass; every cargo that cannot transit the strait stays stranded.

The carriers moving this volume number 90 to 100 commercial vessels per day in normal conditions, mostly VLCCs and Suezmax tankers. The IMF PortWatch dataset, which tracks transits at Hormuz chokepoint six, puts the pre-crisis daily average at roughly 94 vessels. That figure is the baseline used in the throughput calculations on the live tracker.

Bypass pipelines exist but cannot absorb the volume. The Petroline (Saudi Arabia), ADCOP (UAE Habshan to Fujairah), and Goreh-Jask (Iran) pipelines together carry only about 40% of normal Hormuz crude throughput. LNG has no alternative route at all. That gap is why a closure of this strait, unlike most other maritime disruptions, cannot be routed around.

These flows collapsed when Iran closed the strait on 28 February 2026 (Operation Epic Fury triggered the IRGC closure declaration). For the current answer on whether oil is moving, see Is oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz?. For the live daily transit count, the homepage shows the current figure against the pre-crisis baseline.