Cooper says Hormuz oil shipments hit a six-month high as strikes continue
Adm. Brad Cooper said on Saturday, September 19, that U.S. forces had supported more than 1 billion barrels of crude through the Strait of Hormuz over two months.
The cost of sending a very large crude carrier from the Middle East Gulf to China printed above $1 million a day earlier this week. Amplify's Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF BWET, which holds forward freight agreements on that Hormuz voyage, closed Friday at $872.14, up 11%, a 52-week high. Brent settled the same session at $103.87 a barrel, $4.36 below the $108.23 Sunday-evening print after Oman postponed Hormuz talks. Crude has come off that spike. Hormuz freight has not.
BWET kept rising after Brent rolled over
- BWET · 872.14
- Brent · 103.87
Adm. Brad Cooper, who commands U.S. forces in the Iran war, said in a Saturday video message on CENTCOM's X account that oil, cargo and liquefied natural gas moving through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks had reached their highest level in six months. "Clearly, momentum is building," he said. He did not give a daily rate for that two-week high. Listed oil and tanker funds have not had a session to trade the claim.
Cooper is describing a rebound from the wartime trough, under U.S. escort, not a return to the open strait that used to carry about a fifth of the world's oil. Projectiles have kept hitting ships. Iran, in his account, is still exporting nothing.
What the 1 billion barrels do, and do not, measure
Cooper said CENTCOM forces had "supported more than one billion barrels of crude oil leaving the Gulf" in "the last couple of months." He said the primary transit lanes were clear of mines, that the U.S. was working with Gulf allies, insurers and shipping companies to raise volumes further, and that "the effort is paying off." He also said Iran "has exported zero barrels" under a U.S. blockade of its oil.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's last peacetime baseline is still the right comparison. In the first half of 2025, 20.9 million barrels a day of oil moved through Hormuz, equal to about 20% of global petroleum-liquids consumption: 14.7 million barrels a day of crude and condensate and 6.1 million of products. Another 11.4 billion cubic feet a day of LNG, more than a fifth of world trade, went through the same gap, mostly from Qatar.
Read as a two-month total, 1 billion barrels of crude would be in the neighborhood of that crude-and-condensate pace. The comparison is too clean to lean on. "Couple of months" is not a measured window, 1 billion is a round number, and Cooper's figure is crude only. Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave the only recent official daily snapshot: on Sunday, September 13, he said transit over the past seven days had averaged 10 million barrels a day of crude and oil products, about half the EIA's 20.9 million barrel oil-flow baseline. On Wednesday, September 2, he told CNBC that more than 17 million barrels had transited on Monday. Flow has been lumpy. A six-month high can be real and still sit well below the old normal.
The EIA's September Short-Term Energy Outlook, published before Cooper's video, still treated the waterway as constrained. It put crude-production shut-ins at 6.7 million barrels a day in August, up from 5.0 million in July, and assumed Middle East oil flows stay tight through the fourth quarter, with shut-ins averaging 5.7 million barrels a day in that quarter. Some of those missing barrels are Iranian oil under the blockade Cooper described. Some are barrels that cannot get out.
The week the six-month high had to survive
The two-week window Cooper is praising included fresh attacks.
UKMTO verified that a vessel transiting the strait was struck by an unknown projectile late on Saturday, September 12; crew status, damage and any pollution were unknown in the first warning. On Friday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said it had struck the Togo-flagged products tanker Trend in Hormuz on Thursday night, started a fire, and brought the ship to a halt. Independent confirmation of the vessel, cargo and location was thin.
On Saturday, the same day as Cooper's video, the Houthis claimed missile and drone attacks on Riyadh and on an Aramco facility in Yanbu. The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired toward the capital. Photographs showed smoke near Riyadh's airport; verified damage and casualties were not established in those reports. Yanbu, a Red Sea hub that had already stopped loading after an earlier hit on the pipeline that feeds it, was the subject of a separate Houthi claim.
The U.S. is running a protected corridor for Gulf allies. The shooting has not stopped. The six-month high is a statement about volume under that arrangement.
Friday's close is stale on purpose
The United States Oil Fund USO, which holds near-month WTI futures and which etf.net grades a B, closed Friday at $153.82, down 0.96%. It is still up 122% this year. The United States Brent Oil Fund BNO, which holds near-month Brent futures and which etf.net grades a C, closed at $60.57, down 0.57%, up 114% in 2026.
Those funds have been paid for a chokepoint premium. They have not yet had to decide whether Cooper's two-week high shrinks it.
The Hormuz freight fund, BWET, is up 4,428% this year. etf.net grades it a D. A 3.5% expense ratio and a 57% maximum drawdown sit behind that return. Publicly reported fixtures on the Middle East-to-China run in the week before the Baltic's $1 million print were still in roughly the $530,000 to $603,000-a-day range.
More allied barrels through a working corridor would, if they last, take pressure off crude and off the scarcity that has paid tanker freight. Wright's 10 million barrels a day is a week old. The EIA is still counting millions of barrels shut in.
CME's electronic session for U.S. crude opens at 6 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, the first chance for futures to trade the video. Listed funds follow on Monday. The freight market has already printed a 52-week high on the Hormuz voyage.
Frequently asked
What exactly did Cooper claim?
That oil, cargo and LNG through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks hit a six-month high, and that U.S. forces had supported more than 1 billion barrels of crude leaving the Gulf over the last couple of months.
Does a six-month high mean traffic is back to normal?
No: the last official daily snapshot put transit at about 10 million barrels a day, roughly half the peacetime baseline of 20.9 million, and the EIA still assumes millions of barrels a day stay shut in through the fourth quarter.
Why is tanker freight rising while crude falls?
Crude has come off its spike after the postponed Hormuz talks, but the cost of the Middle East-to-China voyage printed above $1 million a day, and the fund holding forward freight agreements on that run closed at a 52-week high.
Have the attacks stopped?
No: the same two-week window included a verified projectile strike on a transiting vessel, an Iranian claim of hitting a products tanker, and Houthi claims of attacks on Riyadh and a facility at Yanbu.
When can markets react to the video?
CME's electronic crude session opens Sunday evening, and listed funds follow on Monday.