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Donald Trump said his troops carried out a bomb attack on Iran’s “crown jewel” Kharg, a small island in the northern Persian Gulf, on Friday.
The five-mile-long coral island – twice the size of London’s Heathrow Airport – is north of the Persian Gulf, 16 miles (26 km) from the Iranian coast and about 300 miles (483 km) north of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which 20% of global oil flows pass, which has been closed by Tehran.
President Trump said US forces “eliminated” military targets on Kharg Island, but significantly said he chose not to “eliminate” oil infrastructure on the island. He threatened this could change if… Iran disrupting the safe passage of ships through the strait.
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Tehran warned of a new level of retaliation if oil infrastructure in Kharg was damaged, and vowed on Saturday that Iranian forces would destroy the oil and gas infrastructure of US-cooperating companies in the region if the sites were targeted, according to Iranian state media.
But why is the island so important?
Why was no oil infrastructure affected?
Kharg is the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments and has a loading capacity of around seven million barrels per day.
The island can accommodate up to 10 supertankers at the same time, as its waters are deep enough to allow oversized anchored tankers to approach shallow coastal waters on the Iranian mainland.
Before the war, the island handled the bulk of Iran’s crude oil exports of 1.7 million barrels per day, with much of it going to China.
A pipeline moving crude oil from storage in the hills of Kharg Island to tankers at the eastern jetty in 2016. Photo: AP
Iranian oil accounts for 11.6%of China’s imports by sea so far in 2026, according to tanker tracker Kpler. “Therefore, if [Mr Trump] were to take that action, he might risk China’s anger,” Sky News said. military analyst Sean Bell said.
The hit to Kharg’s oil infrastructure is also likely to cause oil prices to surge further, after hitting a four-year high on Friday.
Oil exports continued despite the war
A week before the war broke out, Kharg shipped 3.79 million barrels per day, and operations on the island continued despite the conflict.
About 13.7 million barrels of oil have been exported from the island since the US-Israel offensive was launched on February 28, at a rate of 1.1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day, according to maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com and Kpler data.
Several tankers were still loading there on Wednesday, according to satellite images from Tanker Trackers.
Kharg has storage tanks to the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. The country has a storage capacity of about 30 million barrels, and held about 18 million barrels of crude oil at the start of March, according to a JP Morgan report citing Kpler data.
Important for Iranian government funding
The island has long been seen as a key vulnerability that would trigger a harsh response from Tehran if attacked.
Kharg is crucial to funding Iran’s government and military, and if Iran loses control of the island, it would be difficult for the country to function, according to Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.
Katinas said a takeover would give the US leverage in negotiations with Iran because the island is a “major center” of its economy.
While there is speculation that the US may be tempted to seize Kharg Island, experts say that would almost certainly require troops on the ground, making it extremely risky.
An Iranian politician has reportedly threatened to arrest US troops if they attempt to seize a key oil hub in Iran.
JP Morgan’s global commodities research team emphasized the broader economic impact of a direct attack on the island, and warned before the US struck military targets in Kharg that the attack would “immediately halt most of Iran’s crude oil exports, possibly triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure”.
“You take Kharg infrastructure, then take two million [barrels per day] out of the market for good – not until the Strait is repaired,” added Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners.
Damage to the island
Iranian state media reported that no oil infrastructure was damaged in the US strikes, adding that air defenses, a naval base, airport control towers and helicopter hangars were targeted.
The US “successfully struck” more than 90 military targets, including naval mine storage facilities and missile storage bunkers, US Central Command said.
The 55 crude oil storage tanks, which can hold more than 34 million barrels, were “likely undamaged”, Tanker Trackers said.
“While the island has some offshore oil production, most of the oil actually comes from the mainland via several pipeline networks,” the tracking service said.
“The island first exported oil in the summer of 1960 and was built for that purpose [accommodate] Exports amounted to 7 million barrels per day, reflecting potential oil production. Iran reached 6.6 [million barrels per day] in production in 1976.”
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The maritime intelligence firm added that satellite imagery on Saturday showed two new tankers starting to load 2.7 million barrels of crude there.
Activities on the island, including exports and imports, were “running normally” after the attack, said the deputy governor of Bushehr, a port town near Kharg, adding that no military personnel, oil company employees or island residents had been killed.
Has the island been targeted before?
Although viewed as a highly vulnerable island, it has rarely been directly targeted.
The last time this happened was during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, but it did not stop crude oil exports from Kharg.
“When Saddam Hussein invaded the island multiple times 40 years ago and destroyed a number of storage tanks, Kharg Island was still able to export more than 1.5 million barrels per day,” Tanker Trackers said in a post on X.
