The heart of Iran’s oil export infrastructure: the island of Kharg. Image: EPA/EPA
analysis
For the first time, the US military attacked the island of Kharg, through which around 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports pass. What consequences would an occupation of the island have?
Mar 16, 2026, 8:06 p.mMar 16, 2026, 8:06 p.m
The US armed forces bombed the Iranian island of Kharg for the first time on Saturday night. Around 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go through the small island in the Persian Gulf. According to American information, the air strikes were directed solely against military targets; The oil infrastructure such as pipelines, loading terminals and tank farms were intentionally spared.
“Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island… Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we… pic.twitter.com/2iEzCOyA3P
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 13, 2026
As the US deploys additional forces – three warships with around 2,500 marines – to the region, speculation about a possible landing operation on Charg is increasing. Where is this island, why is it so important and what would happen if it were occupied?
Where is Charg?
The almost 23 square kilometer coral island – it is around 6 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide – is located about 25 kilometers from the Iranian coast in the northeastern part of the Persian Gulf, approximately 55 kilometers northwest of the large city of Bushehr. Batch (international spelling: Kharg) has around 10,000 inhabitants and is close to several oil fields. Immediately north of Charg is the smaller, uninhabited island of Chargo.
Charg is located in the northeastern part of the Persian Gulf. Image: Shutterstock
Why is Charg important?
The island was already strategically important in ancient times as it dominated the trade route between India and Mesopotamia. The Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) built Fort Mosselsteyn here in the mid-18th century, but it was soon conquered by Persian pirates. The British occupied the island twice in the 19th century.
But Charg became really important with the oil. Since the Persian Gulf on the Iranian coast is too shallow for large tankers, the American oil company Amoco massively expanded the island from 1956 onwards. When the mullahs’ regime expropriated the private owners after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the island was home to the most valuable oil infrastructure in the entire Middle East.
In 1979, Iran nationalized the island’s oil infrastructure.Image: AP
Today there are three oil terminals and a gas plant on charge; The terminal on the island has an 1,840 meter long pier that can handle ten tankers of up to 200,000 tons at the same time. Even supertankers weighing up to 360,000 tons can dock at the Sea Island Terminal. The massive tanks on Kharg, which can store 30 million barrels (1 barrel is 159 liters), are filled with oil from Iran’s producing areas via underwater pipelines from the mainland. According to Iranian information, on the island More than six million barrels of crude oil are loaded every day become; If necessary, this amount can even be increased to up to 10 million barrels.
More than 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go through the island – most of them to China. Charg is therefore the heart of Iran’s oil infrastructure, the lifeline of the Iranian economy and an essential source of income for the regime.
Satellite image of Charg in February 2026. Image: keystone
Is the USA planning to occupy the island?
There are no official announcements about this. However, there are media reports for example from the news portal Axiosaccording to which representatives of the Trump administration are said to have discussed the conquest of Charg Island. The elimination or reduction of the military infrastructure on the island as a result of the recent air strikes has created the conditions for it to be taken over with ground troops with comparative ease, since it is now without military protection.
Unofficial voices like the retired US Army lieutenant general and former security advisor Keith Kellogg are more blunt. Kellogg told Fox News the US should occupy Charg:
Trump himself has not yet explicitly ruled out ground intervention. And long before his political career, when he was promoting his book “The Art of the Deal” in Great Britain in 1988, he said this Guardian about the Iranian revolution and the hostage-taking in Tehran in 1979:
“They beat us psychologically and made us look like a bunch of fools. A single shot at one of our men or one of our ships and I would give Charg a hard time. I would go in and take it.”
However, an intervention with “boots on the ground” would represent a serious escalation of the war. The deployment of ground troops, even in a confined area, massively increases the risk of losses among one’s own troops.
What consequences could the occupation of Charg have?
An intervention with ground troops – but also targeted air strikes on the island’s oil infrastructure – could completely stop Iranian oil exports for months and thus further impact the country’s already precarious economic situation. Despite the US-Israeli attacks that have been ongoing since February 28, Iran has continued to export between 1.1 and 1.5 million barrels per day, according to data from Tankertracker.com and Kpler Daily Gazette reported. The loss of income from these exports would put the regime in Tehran under severe pressure.
Even though China is actually the main buyer of Iranian crude oil, the disruption of Iranian oil exports through the island would also drive up global crude oil prices, like that Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in an analysis explained. This, in turn, would further fuel inflation in industrialized countries – not a scenario that would be acceptable to US President Trump, who would fear a Republican defeat in the midterms in November.
The terminal on Kharg Island in 2017.Image: EPA
The mullahs’ regime has also announced that in the event of an attack on the oil facilities on Khargh, Iran will immediately Counterattacks on oil facilities across the Gulf region would execute. Iran has also shown a certain degree of restraint in blocking the Strait of Hormuz – also in its own interest. This extremely important bottleneck, through which around a fifth of global crude oil exports pass, is located around four hundred kilometers further southeast. Despite the massive losses from the American-Israeli attacks, the remaining Iranian navy could make the strait virtually impassable using sea mines. This would inevitably push oil prices to new heights.
Occupying the island with ground troops should not be a particularly difficult undertaking for the US armed forces – they have air sovereignty and maritime superiority anyway. However, another question would then be how these occupying troops could defend the island against Iranian artillery, missile and drone attacks. Perhaps neighboring Iranian coastal areas would then have to be brought under control – which would happen Mission creep could lead to, i.e. the expansion of the use beyond the original scope. As is often the case, conquest may be easier to achieve than long-term defense against an adversary that uses asymmetrical warfare.
New video shows the oil tanker attack from an Iranian perspective
Video: Watson/Michael Shepherd