Roughly 7 million barrels of daily oil and fuel shipments are flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, or about half of the volumes stranded at the start of the Iran war, said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Wright said the U.S. will fully reopen the waterway with or without Iran’s assistance. He spoke during the Bloomberg Energy Security Executive Briefing in Houston on June 12. 

At the start of the war in late February, about 20 million barrels of daily shipments were stranded as the strait was effectively shut. Several million barrels were diverted to alternative ports outside the Persian Gulf, leaving about 14 million trapped, Wright said.

That represented “a big flow gap,” he said. “And we’re just going to restore flows ourselves.” 

The restoration of 7 million barrels a day “is a bigger number than I think people had been expecting,” Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Houston investment bank Pickering Energy Partners, told the conference after Wright’s remarks. It “helps justify, if you will, prices that have been maybe a little bit lower than people thought.”

International oil futures fell 3.4% in London and earlier in the session dipped to less than $86 a barrel, the lowest since the early weeks of the war. Prices have descended about 45% from the war-time high above $126 touched in late April.

Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said there are indications that flows through the strait are probably not as high as the energy secretary said. Wirth also cautioned against making premature assumptions about headlines related to any truce negotiations.

“Our view would be it’s probably not quite that much,” Wirth said during a question-and-answer session at the event. As far as the potential for a truce, he said “the evidence would say you shouldn’t fully believe that until you see the agreement signed and you see the actions begin to come into effect. Iran has a long history of being a kind of a patient and immovable negotiating force.”

After months of war and then an unsteady ceasefire, the U.S. and Iran may sign an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sidelines of the Group of Seven world leaders summit next week, Bloomberg reported earlier in the day, citing senior officials.

A senior Iranian official indicated overnight that a deal is likely, said a G7 official and a diplomat from outside the group, who both asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. This year’s G7 summit takes place from June 15 to June 17.

Wright said he wants to see the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve that has been tapped to cushion the blow of war-related disruptions “completely full.” Wright also ruled out any sort of export ban to bolster domestic energy supplies.