Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Bovard dismissed a video shared by US President Donald Trump purporting to show Kharg Island under attack, calling Trump’s posts “laughable” and saying oil operations on the key Persian Gulf export hub had not halted.

“Conditions in Kharg are calm and appropriate and oil activities on the island have not stopped even for a moment,” Bovard, who also serves as chief of the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), told Fars News Agency on August 31.

Trump posted an AI-generated clip on his social media platform early in the day showing the island’s oil facilities apparently engulfed in flames.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens,” he wrote on Truth Social.

There was no evidence that the Iranian energy hub had come under attack.

Bovard said Kharg, from which about 90% of Iran’s oil exports are shipped, had been bombed “on different occasions by the American-Zionist enemy”, but oil industry workers and operational teams had kept activities running.

“Several contractors are now carrying out repairs and modernisation of storage tanks, while work on jetties, tanks and previously planned projects is continuing without interruption,” he said.

Kharg has come under fire during the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran in late February.

The United States pounded the island twice, in mid-March and early April, targeting military sites including naval mine depots, shelters and missile storage facilities.

Washington said oil facilities and export infrastructure were not deliberately targeted.

On June 16, Kharg’s special district governor, Negahdar Hosseinpour, said 548 missiles had hit the island during the strikes, including 50 in one of the heaviest attacks in mid-March.

He said oil production, storage and exports continued without disruption and that shipments Iran’s oil exports did not stop.

Hosseinpour also said six ferryboats were hit over two days in attempts to cut Kharg’s links with the mainland, but fishing and civilian vessels kept residents and oil workers moving, leaving the island connected to the mainland.

The latest tensions followed US strikes on two rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz on a day earlier. Washington said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the strategic waterway. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on US positions in Jordan and the UAE.