Iran's crude exports are concentrated on Kharg Island inside the Gulf, reported at up to around 90% of the total. The Goreh–Jask line was built to reach the Gulf of Oman and, designed for about a million barrels a day, has been reported carrying under seventy thousand.
Overview
Iran's export position is structurally the same as its neighbours': one principal terminal, inside an enclosed sea, upstream of the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island is reported as handling up to around ninety per cent of Iranian crude exports. The Goreh–Jask pipeline was built precisely to change that, reaching a terminal on the Gulf of Oman outside the strait — and it has carried a small fraction of what it was designed for, reported at under seventy thousand barrels a day against a design of about a million, with a single tanker loading at Jask during the 2026 war. Since mid-April 2026 flows from Kharg have been reported disrupted by a naval interdiction of Iranian exports, a military measure distinct from the sanctions architecture that constrains the same system by other means.
Why it matters
This is the fact most often missing from accounts that treat the strait as an Iranian lever: closing it costs Iran its own exports too. Iran holds the same dependence as the states it can constrain, and the bypass it built to escape that dependence has never functioned at a scale that would relieve it.
What depends on it
Near-total on Kharg Island and therefore on the strait. Downstream the dependence is on a single customer: reporting places around ninety per cent of Iranian oil exports as going to China, which is the practical ceiling on what the sanctions architecture achieves.
What disruption does
Iranian export revenue is compressed by two mechanisms operating at once — a restrictive architecture that limits who may buy, and a physical constraint on loading and moving cargo. They are separate causes with separate remedies, and the module does not merge them into a single figure or a single story.
Nodes
Each node is a map marker this module already publishes, with its role in the system, in the order this record authors them. Not a route: no geometry, no distances, and no direction of travel is implied.
Iran's principal crude export terminal, in the northern Gulf. Reported as handling up to around ninety per cent of Iranian crude exports.
In this systemReported as handling up to around 90% of Iranian crude exports.
Why it mattersIran's own export concentration is as extreme as any in the region and its position is the same as its neighbours': inside the Gulf, upstream of the strait. Closing the Strait of Hormuz constrains Iranian exports too, which is the fact most often missing from accounts that treat the strait as an Iranian lever without a cost.
What to watchLoading continuity, and the share of Iranian exports moving through this terminal versus any alternative.
PortConfidence: ModerateAs of 2026-09Show on the map →
The Iranian crude pipeline system running from the Goreh area to Jask on the Gulf of Oman. A single broad marker for the system, not a depiction of its route.
In this systemA single broad marker for the pipeline system. Design around 1m b/d; reported throughput under 70,000 b/d. No route geometry authored.
Why it mattersIran built this line to move crude outside the Strait of Hormuz and has barely used it: designed for around a million barrels a day, it has been reported carrying under seventy thousand, with a single tanker loading at Jask during the 2026 war. It is the module's clearest case of design capacity that is not available capacity.
What to watchWhether throughput rises materially — the observable that would turn a nominal bypass into a real one.
Corridor · supply & trade arteryConfidence: ModerateAs of 2026-09Show on the map →
Iran's export terminal on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Strait of Hormuz, and the seaward end of the Goreh–Jask pipeline.
In this systemOutside the strait. A single tanker was reported loading here during the 2026 war.
Why it mattersIt is the bypass Iran built and has not used. The pipeline was designed for around a million barrels a day and has been reported carrying under seventy thousand, with a single tanker loading here during the 2026 war. Design capacity and available capacity are different quantities, and this terminal is the clearest demonstration of the difference in the module.
What to watchWhether loadings at Jask rise materially — the observable that would show the bypass becoming real rather than nominal.
PortConfidence: ModerateAs of 2026-09Show on the map →
The waterway connecting the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the open ocean, comprising Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Around 20 million barrels a day of crude oil and petroleum products moved through it in the 2025 baseline, with close to a fifth of world LNG exports.
In this systemThe outlet for the overwhelming majority of Iranian exports.
Why it mattersEvery Gulf Arab producer except Oman must pass this water to reach a customer, and so must Iran. It is the single point on which the region's export economy, and a material share of the world's, converges. The alternatives to it carry between a sixth and a quarter of what it normally moves, and for LNG they carry nothing.
What to watchWhether commercial transit resumes at scale, and on what insurance terms — the strait's usable state has been set by commercial risk rather than by physical blockade.
Sea area / strait · broad contextConfidence: HighAs of 2026-09Show on the map →
Alternatives and redundancy
Nominally the Goreh–Jask route; in practice almost none. The distinction between design capacity and realised capacity is the whole of the finding here, and this module never treats the first as the second. A pipeline that has carried under seven per cent of its design throughput is not a bypass in any operational sense, whatever its nameplate says.
United States strikes on Kharg Island were reported as targeting military sites while deliberately avoiding oil and gas infrastructure, with loading reported continuing.
Flows from Kharg reported disrupted following the start of a naval interdiction of Iranian oil exports in mid-April 2026. United States Central Command reported redirecting over 140 ships and disabling nine vessels during the blockade.
Economic implications
Export earnings concentrated on one terminal and one customer are unusually sensitive to interruption at either point.
Actors with a stake
Campaign relevance
What remains unknown
- Iranian export volumes are disputed. The Congressional Research Service recorded exports exceeding two million barrels a day in early March 2026, while a commercial tracker gives 1.65 to 1.80 million for the same period. Neither is treated as verified and no figure is published on this record as a current flow.
- The present status of loadings at Kharg is not established.
- The naval interdiction is reported consistently but has not been confirmed from an official source; the CENTCOM ship and vessel figures are self-reported and carried as such.
Readings the evidence also supports
- Reduced Iranian exports are consistent with physical interdiction and equally with buyers withdrawing under sanctions pressure. Both operated in the same period and the record attributes observed volumes to neither.
Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.
Jask throughput
Whether loadings rise materially — the observable that would turn a nominal bypass into a real one.
Kharg loading continuity
Whether loadings resume, and whether any resumption reflects an easing of interdiction or of restriction.
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Assessed as of2026-09Last reviewed2026-09-04