Chabahar

Chabahar is Iran's only deep-water port on the Arabian Sea, located in Sistan-Baluchestan province. It sustained partial power loss in the CENTCOM strike wave of 8 July 2026, alongside the ports of Bandar Abbas and Konarak and a north-east railway bridge, the second such wave in 48 hours.

India Ports Global (IPGL) operated the port's free zone under a 2024 ten-year agreement covering $120 million of investment, but transferred its operational holding to an Iranian entity on 26 April 2026 when the US sanctions waiver lapsed. The transfer deed includes a reversion clause restoring Indian control once US sanctions ease.

Chabahar sits outside the Strait of Hormuz, giving it strategic importance as an alternative cargo route unaffected by Hormuz closures. During the 2026 conflict it appeared in tanker-tracking data as a potential VLCC anchorage: seven supertankers carrying a combined 14 million barrels clustered near the port in mid-April as Hormuz transits collapsed to three per day. Chabahar also serves India's strategic connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia via the International North-South Transport Corridor, bypassing Pakistan, a geopolitical interest that pre-dates the 2026 conflict and will outlast it.

The IPGL withdrawal was the first third-country state-owned operator exit from Iran in the 2026 war. The forced transfer remains India's most visible geopolitical setback of the conflict: OFAC's refusal to extend the Chabahar waiver demonstrated that no third-country operator can maintain a foothold in Iran under active US sanctions, regardless of strategic interest. The July power-loss episode shows the port's infrastructure, and not just its ownership, remains exposed as the war continues past the June memorandum.