On Thursday, President Donald Trump posted to his social media website a headline from the Wall Street Journal: “More oil is now coming out of the Persian Gulf than before the Iran War.” While this is indeed what the Journal used as a headline in a recent story, the president did not link to the article or give more info beyond that. As the report reads, “Middle East oil flows, including shipments through Hormuz and alternative routes across the region, averaged more than 24 million barrels a day in the week through Oct. 18, surpassing prewar levels of 23.3 million, according to ship tracker Kpler.”
Those details reveal a difference of roughly 700,000 barrels of oil, which is a lot of oil to be sure, but only 3% more than the 23.3 million before Israel and the U.S. launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28. So we’re basically back to where things were before the fighting started.
