U.S. strikes hit Iran’s Kharg Island, hub for 90% of its oil exports, raising risk to global crude flows
U.S. forces carried out large-scale precision strikes overnight on Kharg Island, the Gulf outpost that handles almost all of Iran’s crude exports, hitting more than 90 military targets, according to U.S. Central Command and President Donald Trump.
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Kharg, a 20-square-kilometer island about 30 kilometers off Iran’s mainland and roughly 500 kilometers northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, hosts the country’s largest oil terminal and is the export point for about 90% of Iranian oil shipments. The terminal has a loading capacity of roughly 7 million barrels a day, making it a critical node in global energy trade.
Central Command said on X that the strikes destroyed naval mine storage sites, missile storage bunkers and “multiple other military sites” on Kharg. Announcing the action, Trump called the island a “crown jewel” for Iran and said every military target there had been “totally obliterated.” He also wrote on Truth Social that “for reasons of decency” he had chosen not to wipe out the island’s oil infrastructure, but warned he would “immediately reconsider” if Iran or others interfered with the free passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian provincial official said oil operations were unaffected. Ehsan Jahaniyan, deputy governor of southern Bushehr province, told the state-run IRNA news agency that companies “at this export terminal are continuing as normal” and reported no casualties. The claims could not be independently verified.
The strikes come as a two-week-old conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran has convulsed the region following U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Feb. 28 that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iranian attacks in recent days have all but halted maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint through which about a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas typically pass — and have also affected energy infrastructure in other Gulf states.
Energy analysts had warned that any hit to oil infrastructure on Kharg could reverberate through global markets. While Iran has sought to diversify export routes with the opening of the Jask terminal on the Gulf of Oman in 2021, Kharg remains the backbone of the system and a focal point of risk.
“It is a cornerstone of Iran’s economy and a major source of revenue for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” JPMorgan said, describing Kharg as “a critical vulnerability” despite Tehran’s efforts to reduce reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. The island’s prominence dates to the country’s oil expansion in the 1960s and 1970s, when the shallowness of much of Iran’s coastline made Kharg essential for loading supertankers.
The Pentagon did not indicate any plan to deploy U.S. ground forces on the island, despite speculation among some observers that Kharg could serve as a staging post for a larger operation inside Iran. Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said last week that seizing Kharg during active hostilities would be “not a wise move” because it is “almost an entire island of oil facilities and pipelines and tank farms,” complicating any military operation.
Trump has repeatedly referenced his January operation against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and access to the country’s oil reserves as a blueprint for pressure on adversaries, fueling questions about whether Iran’s broader energy network — beyond Kharg — could be in the crosshairs if the conflict widens.
Iran, the fourth-largest crude producer in OPEC, has vowed that “not one liter” of oil will be exported from the Gulf while the war continues and said any strike on its energy infrastructure would draw an “eye for an eye” response.
The competing assertions — Washington emphasizing only military targets and Tehran insisting oil exports continue — set up a high-stakes test in the coming days for the security of the Strait of Hormuz and the resilience of one of the world’s most critical oil terminals. Any sustained disruption at Kharg would risk intensifying an already volatile energy market and deepen the regional crisis.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
