U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has put a number on the Strait of Hormuz: 9 million barrels of oil in average daily transit, she stated. The figure is a specific claim from a sitting cabinet official. What the statement leaves open is what the number is being used to support.
The counterargument to reading this as a self-contained data point is the straightforward one. A daily average is a description of the center, not the edges. Granholm's 9 million barrel figure, as sourced, does not extend to a stress scenario or to what the department's posture would be if that transit volume faced disruption. A baseline and a policy argument are different things, and only one of them is in the statement.
On balance, 9 million barrels a day is the U.S. Energy Secretary's stated daily throughput for oil through the Strait of Hormuz. That is the number Granholm has now put on record.