Crude awakening: The White House’s oil numbers don’t add up

Good morning. On Fortune’s radar today:

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White House delivered misleading stats on oil shipments from the Gulf

You will be shocked to learn that a politician may have said something misleading. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright raised eyebrows in energy markets Wednesday when he said more oil exports left the Middle East on Monday—between the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes—than before the beginning of the Iran war. “Monday was our record ever through, since the conflict began. Over 17 million barrels of oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz on ships on Monday. If you add the bypass export pipelines, more than left the region [than] in the pre-conflict,” he said.

Really? More oil is getting through the Strait now than before the war? Really?

It appears that Wright is adding up transfers over multiple days into a single day, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, jokingly calling it “mathemagics.”

In reality, on Monday, Aug. 31, only an estimated 9.14 million barrels of oil exited the Arabian Sea—including volumes through Hormuz and other routes, Madani told Fortune’s Jordan Blum. (And that explains why oil has stayed above $95 per barrel.)

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