US military runs secret Hormuz corridor moving 10 million barrels of oil nightly

Covert transit operations in the southern channel

The United States military has established an unpublicised shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, moving convoys of oil tankers through the conflict zone every night. Operating for several weeks, the corridor guides between 15 and 20 tankers nightly through a southern channel adjacent to the coast of Oman. The operation escorts fully loaded vessels out into the Arabian Sea while simultaneously shepherding empty chartered tankers back into Persian Gulf ports to load additional crude. Public maritime traffic data compiled by Oxford University and Port Watch registered fewer than a handful of visible daily transits during this period, masking the actual volume handled through military channels. To date, US operations have assisted approximately 1,000 commercial vessels navigating the contested waterway.

Flow volumes and market stabilization

Daily export estimates through the corridor range between 5 million and 10 million barrels of crude oil, according to accounts from The New York Times and Axios. On select high-volume days, daily transit has reached between 15 million and 20 million barrels. In the fourth quarter of 2025, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, data from the US Energy Information Administration recorded an average throughput of 21.6 million barrels per day through the strait. Prior to the conflict, the waterway carried roughly 20% of globally traded petroleum and liquefied natural gas before Iranian blockades followed joint Israeli and American strikes. Restoring nearly half of pre-war volumes is intended to relieve severe supply disruptions that drove global energy prices higher.

Military coordination and defensive escorts

The complex logistics are managed by a specialized task force headquartered at the US Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in collaboration with regional Gulf partners. Commercial operators submit transit schedules to the military, which compiles daily manifests and assigns ships to paired inbound and outbound columns within strict time windows. The corridor became viable after a two-week military campaign conducted by US Central Command degraded Iranian coastal radar and maritime tracking installations. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units retain limited monitoring capacity through scattered speedboats and repaired radar sites, frequently launching munitions without precise targeting data. Within the past week alone, US aircraft, helicopters, and naval assets intercepted eight Iranian drones and two anti-ship cruise missiles directed toward the convoy lanes.

Strategic and political stakes in Washington

The maritime security initiative carries direct political implications for the administration of President Donald Trump ahead of the November midterm elections. Disruptions to oil flows contributed to broader inflation in the United States, pushing presidential approval ratings down to 33% in recent polling. Vice President JD Vance described lowering crude prices as the administration's top goal in the conflict, though Trump later restated that preventing Iran from securing a nuclear arsenal remains the primary objective. In recent public statements, Trump declared that the US maintains complete authority over the strait, adding that Washington could consider claiming the waterway as territory following the conclusion of military operations.