The U.S. naval blockade designed to put a chokehold on Iran’s economy appears to be working, according to new satellite imagery of the country’s main export hub.
Photographs dated April 26 and released by the maritime intelligence company Windward showed two crude carriers with a combined capacity of 3 million barrels loading at the eastern and western piers of Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, which handled over 90 percent of Iran’s outbound oil last year.
What appeared to be business as usual for Tehran’s main economic lifeline turned out to be anything but, as a queue of at least eight large tankers demonstrated Kharg Island “under visible operational pressure,” Windward said in analysis published on Sunday.
“This buildup indicates elevated pressure on export throughput, with vessels accumulating at anchorage while awaiting loading slots,” Windward said. “The combination of active loading and a growing queue suggests that export activity is continuing, but constrained by operational pacing, infrastructure limits, or external enforcement dynamics.”
A U.S. delegation dispatched to the Middle East by President Donald Trump agreed a two-week ceasefire with Iran beginning on April 7, which has since been extended. But Trump has refused to budge on the naval blockade against Iranian ports, a response in part to the disruption of energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shut the strait to civilian traffic after U.S. and Israeli bombs struck Tehran on February 28. The IRGC continues to deter commercial ships with a combination of sea mines as well as drone and missile attacks.
Four ships made publicly trackable crossings on Sunday, down from the prewar average of 138 vessels a day, the U.S.-run Joint Maritime Information Center said in its latest advisory on Sunday.
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the naval and air forces of its 5th Fleet have been enforcing the blockade since April 13, with the stated intension of denying the entry and exit to Iranian ports of contraband goods including weapons and energy, among other items.
U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have been more explicit about the U.S. goal: force Iran to store instead of export its crude oil, compelling a reduction in production, a shut-in of wells, and ultimately the loss of its main source of government revenue, which pays civil servants and soldiers.
“The U.S. blockade is beginning to materially disrupt Iran’s oil flows, with loadings collapsing and storage filling rapidly,” Homayoun Falakshahi, who leads analysis on crude oil at the commodities analytics firm Kpler, said in a report on Monday.
Existing seaborne shipments headed to China prior to the blockade could net Iran some badly needed profits in the coming weeks—up to $250 million a day—but its combined onshore and floating storage capacity may only buy it another 22 days of production, according to the analysis.
“We estimate crude production will fall from 2.75 [million barrels per day] to 1.2–1.3 mbd by mid-May if the blockade holds,” Falakshahi said.
No Iranian tanker has escaped the U.S. blockade zone, Kpler said, which now extends far beyond the blockade line in the Gulf of Oman to the waters of Asia.
Over 90 percent of Iran’s sanctioned crude is sold to small refineries in northeastern China known as “teapots,” which receive the product directly or via illicit ship-to-ship transfers off the coast of Malaysia.
Last Friday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sought to tighten the noose around Iran’s “shadow fleet” vessel network by sanctioning some 40 companies and ships.
Among the 19 vessels added to the OFAC list was the Panamanian-flagged gas tanker the Sevan, which was intercepted by the U.S. Navy the very next day in the Arabian Sea, shortly after exiting the Persian Gulf.
The Sevan, which recently loaded product in Iran, makes frequently deliveries to Bangladesh and to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to the TrackerTrackers.com monitoring group.
The Navy said late on Sunday it had turned around 38 ships, on the 14th day of the operation.
The blockade is not a risk-free strategy for Trump, who is gambling with political capital at home and with the increasingly volatile global energy market.
A lot can change between now and May, but with the widening U.S. blockade sure to squeeze Iran’s economy, it may be Tehran that blinks first.
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