US Establishes Shipping Corridor Through Strait of Hormuz to Move Oil: Axios

WASHINGTON, Aug 19: The US military has quietly established a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz to facilitate the movement of millions of barrels of oil each day, Axios reported Wednesday, citing two US officials.

The operation has been underway for several weeks, with 15 to 20 tankers reportedly transiting the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman. US officials told Axios that the corridor is helping move around 10 million barrels of oil per day.

The US military is also helping empty tankers enter the Gulf from the Arabian Sea, where they load oil in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait before coordinating their return passage through the strait.

According to Axios, the task force overseeing the operation is being run from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One US official said Washington has controlled the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz for the past two months, while acknowledging that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could still pose a nuisance.

The operation is aimed at maintaining oil flows through the strategic waterway amid ongoing regional tensions. President Donald Trump told Axios Wednesday that a “tremendous amount of oil” was moving through the Strait of Hormuz.