Donald Trump has said the US could take Iran’s Kharg, a small island in the north of the Persian Gulf.
The five-mile-long coral island – twice the size of London’s Heathrow Airport – lies 16 miles (26km) from Iran’s coast and roughly 300 miles (483km) north of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which 20% of global oil flows, which Tehran has shut down.
It is Iran’s main oil terminal in the Persian Gulf and in recent comments to the Financial Times, President Trump said his “favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran”.
He added: “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options. It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.
“I don’t think they have any defence. We could take it very easily.”
Iran latest – follow live updates
It is not the first time Mr Trump has set his sights on Kharg Island.
In mid-March he claimed US forces “obliterated” military targets on the island, but significantly said he chose not to “wipe out” the oil infrastructure. He threatened that this could change if Iran interfered with the safe passage of ships through the strait.
Tehran warned at the time of a new level of retaliation if the oil infrastructure on Kharg was damaged, vowing that Iranian forces would destroy the oil and gas infrastructure of companies cooperating with the US in the region if its sites were targeted, according to Iranian state media.
So why is the island so important and what could happen if Mr Trump tries to take it?
Kharg Island. Pic: Planet Labs PBC via AP
Critical to funding of Iranian government
The island has long been seen as a key vulnerability that would provoke a severe response by Tehran if attacked.
Kharg is critical to funding Iran’s government and military, and if Iran were to lose 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.
Mr Katinas said a takeover would give the US leverage over negotiations with Iran because the island is “the main node” of its economy.
While there has been speculation the US could be tempted to seize Kharg Island, experts say that would almost certainly require troops on the ground, making it extremely risky.
File pic: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/Shutterstock
One Iranian politician has reportedly already threatened US troops with capture if they attempt to seize its crucial oil hub.
JP Morgan’s global commodity research team stressed the wider economic implications of a direct strike on the island, warning strikes would “immediately halt the bulk of Iran’s crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure”.
“You take out Kharg infrastructure, then you take two million [barrels per day] out of the market for good – not until the Straits get fixed,” added Dan Pickering, chief investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners.
Oil exports continuing despite war
In the week before the war broke out, Kharg shipped a record 3.79 million barrels per day, and operations on the island have continued despite the conflict.
About 13.7 million barrels of oil have been exported from the island since the US-Israeli strikes were launched on 28 February, at a rate of 1.1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day, according to maritime intelligence company TankerTrackers.com and Kpler data.
Kharg has storage tanks in the south, along with housing for thousands of workers. It has a storage capacity of roughly 30 million barrels, and held about 18 million barrels of crude as of early March, according to a JP Morgan report citing Kpler data.
Why Trump held off targeting oil infrastructure
After strikes in mid-March, Iranian state media reported that no oil infrastructure on the island was damaged, adding that air defences, a naval base, airport control tower, and a helicopter hangar were targeted.
The US Central Command also claimed it had “successfully struck” more than 90 military targets, including naval mine storage facilities and missile storage bunkers.
The 55 crude oil storage tanks, which can hold more than 34 million barrels, are “most likely unscathed”, according to Tanker Trackers.
Kharg is the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments and has the capacity to load around seven million barrels a day.
Before the war, the island handled most of Iran’s roughly 1.7 million barrels of crude exports per day, with the majority of it going to China.
Iranian oil accounts for 11.6% of China’s seaborne imports so far in 2026, according to tanker tracker Kpler. “Therefore, if [Mr Trump] was to take that out, he might risk the ire of China,” Sky News’ military analyst Sean Bell said.
Hitting Kharg’s oil infrastructure would also likely lead to oil prices surging even further. As of 30 March, a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark for oil prices, was close to a four-year high, costing $115.54.
It represents a near 60% price increase since before the war broke out.
However, according to the Washington Post, the US is preparing a ground invasion of Iran. Troops on the ground would make it far easier for the Trump administration to try and take Kharg.
It reported any operation would “fall short of a full-scale invasion” and plans could involve raids by Special Operations and conventional infantry troops.
What could happen if Trump takes Kharg?
If Mr Trump does decide to commit US forces to seizing Kharg Island, there are two very different schools of thought about how it could go.
“If the plan is to win a war against Iran, then taking Kharg Island should be one of the central missions of the conflict,” Francis A Galgano, a former US army lieutenant colonel who is now a professor of military geography at Villanova University, told Sky’s US partner network NBC News.
“It provides the US with enormous leverage in any negotiations and it’s a ‘stick’ to force the Iranians to stop attacking shipping.”
Christian Emery, an associate professor specialising in US-Iran relations at University College London, said Mr Trump faced a “real risk of [the conflict] spiralling into a far more dangerous” one.
He told NBC that Kharg is less than 20 miles from the Iranian mainland, well within rocket, artillery and drone range.
Even if the US did capture the island, “holding the position would be extremely challenging”, he said.
“[It] would be an absolutely disastrous decision that would ensure the conflict lasted many months,” he added.
Read more:
Israel expands invasion in southern Lebanon
Has the island been targeted before?
Despite being viewed as a critical vulnerability, the island has rarely been directly targeted.
The last time was during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, but it did not stop crude oil exports from Kharg.
“When Saddam Hussein raided the island numerous times 40 years ago and destroyed a number of storage tanks, Kharg Island was still able to export over 1.5 million barrels per day,” Tanker Trackers said in a post on X.
