Iranian oil tankers flee the largest export terminal in fear of an Israeli attack

Iranian tankers have moved from Kharg Island, Iran’s largest oil export terminal, amid fears of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran’s most important crude export infrastructure.

Satellite imagery and tanker tracking companies have detected the major exodus of Iranian tankers from Kharg Island, which handles about 90 percent of all Iran’s oil exports, CNBC reports.

“National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) appears to fear an imminent attack by Israel,” TankerTrackers.com posted on social media platform X late Thursday.

“Their empty VLCC supertankers cleared the country’s largest oil terminal, Kharg Island, yesterday,” said TankerTrackers.com.

The vessel tracking service noted that “crude loadings continue, but all additional vacant shipping capacity has been removed from the Kharg Island anchorage.”

“This is the first time we’ve seen anything like this since the 2018 round of sanctions,” said TankerTrackers.com.

Satellite images captured two weeks ago by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission showed a number of very large crude oil tankers in the waters around Kharg Island, CNBC says.

But satellite images of the same area on Oct. 3 showed no tanks to be seen around Iran’s most important oil export terminal, according to CNBC.

The removal of vacant shipping capacity on Kharg Island suggests that Iran may be preparing for an Israeli attack on its oil infrastructure.

The oil market is also awaiting Israel’s response to the Iranian missile attack on Israel earlier this week. Oil prices rose 1.5 percent early Friday and are on track for a strong weekly gain amid rekindled tensions in the Middle East.

Most analysts say OPEC’s spare capacity, concentrated in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, would be enough to offset a loss of Iranian supply.

An even more significant supply disruption from the Middle East could lead to triple-digit oil prices. But currently, analysts believe that attacks on the oil infrastructure of other producers in the region or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are low-probability events.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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