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Wright on This Week: Hormuz Flows Above 9 Million Barrels a Day and the Path Down for Fuel Prices

September 8, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:08:18

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What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos in a segment recorded September 6, 2026 and posted September 8, according to the Department of Energy’s recording, rendered in Arabic-rendered auto-captions and paraphrased here. Wright said the United States remains in a conflict with Iran: Iran’s nuclear program and navy are nearing their end and its air force is effectively finished, as he put it, while the U.S. keeps increasing the volume of oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Combined with alternative pipelines, he said flows reach about two-thirds of pre-conflict rates.

Wright said a wartime record of 17 million barrels a day crossed on Monday, against a pre-war average of 20 million, and that the seven-day average now stands slightly above 9 million barrels a day through the strait — the highest that average has ever been, as he stated it — rising to roughly 13 to 14 million barrels a day leaving the region when Saudi and Emirati bypass pipelines are added. He said the U.S. Navy’s critical mission is not only escorting ships but preventing any Iranian oil or other exports from leaving, maintaining the economic pressure that he said will either change the regime or change its policies. He said there may never be a nuclear agreement, and that prevention may simply mean destroying Iran’s capability to build and deliver a weapon.

On fuel prices, with the national average at $4.10 a gallon against $3.16 a year earlier as the host cited, Wright said futures markets price gasoline about 35 cents cheaper two months out, in November, and that demand would fall after Labor Day as the summer driving season ends. He said the administration had changed refining specifications so U.S. refineries can produce more gasoline and diesel, while New York, Connecticut, California and other Democratic-run states declined to adopt the change. On Venezuela, he said oil exports are up 50 percent and total national production up 25 percent, with billions in new investment announced, and he defended working with the government in Caracas on the grounds that the United States controls the sale of Venezuelan oil outside the country, giving Washington leverage, as he described the arrangement.

Why it matters

Wright’s flow figures are the administration’s running public ledger for the Hormuz operation, and his refusal to promise a nuclear agreement reframes success as destroying capability rather than signing a deal — a distinction that matters for how the conflict ends.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Wright pointed on September 6, 2026 to futures pricing gasoline roughly 35 cents a gallon cheaper by November 2026 — a dated, checkable market claim flagged for the scoreboard editors, with no verdict entered here.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins This Week With George Stephanopoulos on ABC News—September 6, 2026”, 2026-09-08 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-09-08). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.