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By John Feng
China Editor
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Suspected oil tankers have been seen loading fuel at Iran's Kharg Island, two days after President Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces to bomb military sites on the major crude oil hub.
Trump was responding to rising gas prices, in part a result of Iran's decision to close the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on civilian vessels around the Persian Gulf.
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Brent crude, which came down slightly last week after the United States released emergency oil stockpiles, rose above $100 a barrel after the strikes on Kharg Island, from which the majority of Iranian fuel is exported.
Synthetic aperture radar imagery captured by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellites showed at least two crude oil tankers docked at the eastern piers of Kharg Island on Sunday, pointing to ongoing operations following the U.S. strikes overnight on March 14.
Kharg Island sits about 20 miles off southern Iran in the Persian Gulf and its fuel tanks can hold up to 34 million barrels, according to TankerTrackers.com. Undersea pipes from the mainland carry crude oil to the terminal, which handled 96 percent of its exports last year—over 1.5 million barrels per day.
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Trump has been reluctant to hit Iranian fuel storage and export sites and reportedly asked Israel to do the same. The Pentagon said on X at the time that more than 90 military-use facilities, including missile storage bunkers, were hit, "while preserving the oil infrastructure."
On his Truth Social account, Trump wrote: "Our weapons are unmatched, but I chose not to strike the island's oil infrastructure out of restraint. If Iran—or anyone—threatens free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, that decision will change immediately."
Tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has fallen over 90 percent since the outbreak of war on February 28. Trump's latest attempt to compel Tehran to reopen the waterway so far has not changed the risk assessments of most shipping lines, which have kept their vessels far from the possibility of further strikes by Iranian anti-ship missiles and attack drones.
Only a handful of ships so far, including bulk carriers prominently displaying connections to China, have attempted to run the gauntlet.
Iran sells most of its oil to China, which sources about 10 percent of its crude from the Islamic Republic, according to best estimates. Iranian tankers continue to sail out the Persian Gulf daily.
"Kharg Island has been loading tankers non-stop since the war broke out two weeks ago," TankerTrackers.com wrote on X in the hours after the U.S. military operation.
"Another 2 million barrels of Iranian crude just departed," it said a post on Sunday.
Beijing on Monday rejected Trump's appeal for China to help the U.S. keep energy flows moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
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