U.S. and Iran maintain separate escorted routes through Strait of Hormuz after ceasefire
@FortuneMagazine reported that U.S. officials disclosed a protected shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz that moved over 100 million barrels of oil during and after a ceasefire with Iran.
middleeasteye.netU.S. protection. S. assistance. President Donald Trump described the operation on Wednesday as a “secret mission” that had put more than 100 million barrels of oil on the market, or about five days’ worth of shipments before the war started.
“I can say it now. Something you didn’t know,” he said. “Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? ” Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified on Tuesday that traffic in the strait was rising “very meaningfully” in a military operation that had not been disclosed openly.
U.S. assistance along a route near the Omani coast. S. ” Iran established a separate channel along its own coast, demanding tolls and attacking ships that try to avoid it.
U.S. forces and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continue to exchange fire regularly while maintaining competing lanes. S. aircraft have bombed Iranian missile sites and destroyed fast-attack boats.
The IRGC has launched drones at commercial ships and downed an Apache attack helicopter, whose crew was rescued from the water. S. protection and offload oil through ship-to-ship transfers before the empty vessels return for more crude.
Kuwait began offering crude to Asian refiners on Tuesday, the first such sales since the war began. The United Arab Emirates has used a pipeline to move some supplies around the strait and has sold oil from inside the Persian Gulf to Asian buyers. An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 50 took off from the flight deck of the guided-missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner during operations on May 19, 2026.
