Scott Bessent: no tanker has loaded at Kharg Island since August

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday, 20 October 2026, that no oil loading has been observed at the Kharg Island oil terminal since August and that the Islamic Republic currently has no oil cargo on the water. In normal conditions Kharg handles around 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports.

In an interview with 2Way TV, Bessent said the Treasury's effort to isolate the Islamic Republic economically was working and that signs of panic were becoming visible in Tehran. He added that he did not know whether the process would take four more weeks or eight, but that at some point the Islamic Republic's economy would collapse suddenly and non-linearly. The Treasury secretary compared the Islamic Republic's situation to a company on the verge of bankruptcy and said Washington knows everyone who has been providing services to the regime and has seen those activities stop abruptly.

Operation "Economic Outcast" and the Islamic Republic's oil exports

The US Treasury launched the operation known as "Economic Outcast" in August 2026. Bessent had said on 6 October that not a single barrel of crude had been loaded onto a ship since 25 August. Some energy traders have compared the zero figure with independent tanker-tracking data and questioned it, but US officials stand by it.

Bessent's remarks are consistent with other reports of the regime's financial crisis. US Central Command had earlier said that the IRGC is short of money to pay its forces, a claim the Islamic Republic has denied, although Masoud Pezeshkian has admitted to fundamental problems caused by the blockade. Meanwhile, the volume of stablecoin transactions linked to the Islamic Republic has fallen by 94 percent, according to Tether's chief executive.

The cost of the crisis for the people of Iran

The halt in oil exports, which for years was the regime's main source of revenue for the IRGC and its proxy groups, has also increased the pressure on ordinary households: rising prices, shortages of medicine and the collapse of the rial. At the same time, by threatening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic is trying to shift the cost of its own isolation onto the global energy market.

According to the US Treasury secretary, the Kharg terminal, through which 90 percent of Iran's oil exports passed, has been idle since August.