Iranian drone attacks could disrupt the Strait of Hormuz for months, but how long the Islamic Republic could sustain its missile barrage is less clear, according to intelligence sources and military analysts.
Since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, Iran has launched hundreds of missiles and more than 1,000 drones at Gulf states allied with Washington. Most were intercepted by air defenses, but some residential and commercial buildings, infrastructure and U.S. military bases have sustained damage.
Major drone maker
Tehran is a major drone manufacturer and has the industrial capacity to produce around 10,000 per month, according to the Centre for Information Resilience, a nonprofit research group funded by Britain’s Foreign Office.
The size of its missile stockpile is unknown, with estimates ranging from 2,500 by Israel’s military to around 6,000 according to other analysts. How much of Iran’s arms cache remains could be a key factor in determining the course of the war.
Closing the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas passes, has been one of Iran’s main objectives, and shipping through the crucial energy artery has ground to a near halt after Iranian hits on six vessels.
Energy prices have jumped, with Brent crude rising 12% and a European natural gas benchmark up about 50% so far this week.
“Iran is not going to fold easily or quickly, they have the means to make it unsafe for commercial traffic to flow through Hormuz,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group.
“The U.S. is prioritizing attacking Iran’s munitions, bases and facilities that threaten the Strait. But all Iran has to do is show they can hit a few tankers and concern will take care of the rest, folks just won’t go through,” McNally said.
Missile supplies a vulnerable point
Strategic missile supplies are a vulnerable point for Iran, according to a former director at Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency.
“Russia is in no position to resupply and China will be quite cautious about this. If it became known that China was actually providing some sort of serious military hardware to Iran, that would play very badly with the GCC states,” he said, referring to members of the Gulf Cooperation Council comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Missile stores may be lower because Tehran had been supplying Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, a second Western intelligence source said.
Stocks were also reduced during a 12-day war with Israel in June, but they have been partially restored, according to Israeli military intelligence.
A key constraint may be launchers for the missiles. Supplies have at least halved over the last year due to strikes by Israel and the U.S. and further declined over the past five days, research by Britain’s CIR showed.
Despite this, Iran is likely to be able to sustain a fight with its drones. The country’s latest generation of Shahed-136 drones have a range of 435 to 620 miles, sufficient to reach anywhere in the southern Gulf coast when launched from the Iranian mainland or vessels, according to Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.
Many are produced at dual-use plants and other facilities could be retooled to ramp up production, a CIR analyst said.
These drones were able to penetrate Gulf states’ air defence systems, with 65 entering the UAE since the conflict broke out.
They struck Amazon’s data centers, Dubai International Airport and a Fairmont hotel. Bahrain has suffered material damage to infrastructure, a U.S. naval base and a tower containing a hotel and apartments from drones.
Sea mines could prolong disruption
Oil traders are bracing for further price spikes as the length of the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz becomes clearer in the coming days.
“I am very concerned, this risk is currently underpriced in oil markets,” said a senior executive at Vitol, a global commodity trading house. “The prevalent theory is that Iran is using old missiles and drones first to deplete air defences. If so, their response is yet to start properly.”
And if missiles and drones start to run out, Iran could deploy sea mines. Tehran has an inventory of 5,000 to 6,000 such mines, according to Dryad Global, a maritime risk intelligence firm.
They can be moored to the seabed, rocket-propelled or drift in waters, exploding when a vessel comes into contact. There is no indication that mines have been laid in the Strait of Hormuz at this point, analysts said.
“If sea mines are laid, it will take a long time to deal with them,” said Cormac McCarry, director at Control Risks with a focus on maritime intelligence and security services. “That’s where we will be looking at months of destruction.”
Story by Anna Hirtenstein, Andrew Mills and Jonathan Saul
(Reporting by Anna Hirtenstein and Jonathan Saul in London and Andrew Mills in Doha; Editing by Alex Richardson)