As Iran and US-Israel war drags on for the 15th day straight, US President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Tehran that it would hit its Kharg island once again “for fun”.
Speaking in an interview with NBC News, Trump said previous US strikes had “totally demolished” most of the island’s oil infrastructure. The US “may hit it a few more times just for fun”.
In the ongoing conflict, US forces have been carrying out airstrikes on military installations on Kharg Island. According to several reports, the strikes focused on military facilities, while the oil export infrastructure itself was largely left intact.
So, why has this tiny coral island become an eye of a storm in this prolonged war.
What makes the island so important?
The coral island, measuring only about 8 km long and 4–5 km wide, is around a third of the size of Manhattan, just 25 km off Iran’s coast. It became strategically important during the oil boom of the 1960s when it was developed as one of the world’s largest oil export terminals.
However, despite its small size, the island handles 80 to 90 per cent of the country’s crude exports, serving as Iran’s main oil export terminal.
According to data from TankerTrackers, in 2025 the island handled about 96 per cent of Iran’s crude exports, equivalent to roughly 1.54 million barrels per day out of a national total of about 1.6 million barrels per day.
Most of the crude shipped from Kharg arrives via pipelines from mainland oil fields in southern Iran rather than being produced on the island itself. According to reports, more than 50 crude storage tanks on the island can hold over 34 million barrels.
Double up as military hub
For the embattled Gulf nation, the island also doubles up as a military hub, with key infrastructure installments such as coastal missile launchers, radar systems, surveillance networks and drone facilities.
As per a report by Iran International, access to the island is tightly restricted and guarded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Early on in the ongoing war, the island remained untouched as the US and Israel maintained that they would avoid attacking the oil infrastructure.
Experts fear that any attack on the oil infrastructure of the island could send the oil prices soaring. Since the war began, crude oil prices have already risen by over 40 per cent, from around $73 per barrel on February 27 to around $103 per barrel on Saturday.
Speculations are also doing the rounds that US forces would at some point attempt to take over Kharg Island.
