By Sheila Dang and Arathy Somasekhar
HOUSTON, June 12 (Reuters) - Roughly 7 million barrels a day of oil are getting out of the Persian Gulf with U.S. military help, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Friday at an event in Houston.
That is about half of the flow of oil that has been stuck in the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began, Wright said.
"We have a military effort that we've not talked a lot about, which started more recently to get cargoes out," Wright said.
No Iranian
crude is getting out of the Strait, Wright said at a Bloomberg Energy event, adding that he expects to see the free flow of all products through the Persian Gulf if a deal is reached. And if no deal is reached, he said the U.S. military will work to restore the flow.
The flow of 7 million bpd is a bigger number than the oil industry was expecting, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners.
Oil prices, currently in the $88 range, indicate that investors had assumed only about 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil were flowing through the Strait, Rebecca Babin, CIBC Private Wealth senior energy trader, said at the event.
Wright said that some sanctions on Iran could be partially lifted if a deal is made.
A U.S. gasoline tax holiday over the summer was a possibility that could help reduce prices, Wright said.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang and Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Nathan Crooks, Paul Simao and Mark Porter)
