Two Iranian cargo ships may be seeking to move key chemicals for missile propellants from China, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The vessels could depart from China in the next few weeks, it said.
The report is based on “intelligence from security officials in two Western countries.”
This information appears to serve as a clear warning to Iran and China about these vessels.
According to the report, “The Iranian-flagged ships – the Golbon and the Jairan – are expected to carry more than 1,000 tonnes of sodium perchlorate, which is used to make ammonium perchlorate, the main ingredient for solid propellant for missiles.”
Iran has suffered some setbacks in manufacturing missile propellants in the last year. Axios reported in October that Israel had struck 12 “planetary mixers,” which Reuters said were “used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles.”
Further, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, “Early satellite imagery revealed that Israel had destroyed solid-propellant missile production facilities at Parchin, Khojir, and Shahroud.”
IRGC to receive missile fuel
The Financial Times report said that this sodium perchlorate “could produce 960 tonnes of ammonium perchlorate, which is 70% of the propellant for solid-fuel missiles. That amount of ammonium perchlorate could produce 1,300 tonnes of propellant, enough to fuel 260 mid-range Iranian missiles such as the Kheibar Shekan or Haj Qassem.
“Ammonium perchlorate is among the chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international anti-proliferation body.”
Solid rocket fuel contains an oxidizing agent such as potassium perchlorate or sodium perchlorate. The Kheibar Shekan is an Iranian medium-range solid-fuel ballistic missile.
According to the reports, the chemicals are destined for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This article in the Financial Times is very detailed and points to a desire for this shipment to be stopped or interdicted by Chinese or other authorities. US President Donald Trump’s administration may be paying attention.
According to the officials mentioned in it, the chemicals are in thirty-four, 20-foot containers loaded on the Golbon.
That ship left the Chinese island of Daishan on Tuesday. The island is just south of Shanghai.As for the Jairan, it “is expected to depart China with 22 containers in early February,” the article read.
It will take three weeks for the ships to reach Iran, it continued. “The officials said the chemicals were loaded onto the Golbon at Taicang, a port just north of Shanghai, and were destined for Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.
“Based on data from vessel tracker Marine Traffic, the Golbon spent at least several days off Daishan Island before leaving on Tuesday,” per the report.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was not familiar with the situation, and Iran did not comment on the article.
Meanwhile, in Davos, Mohammed Javad Zarif, who now serves as Iran’s vice president for strategic affairs, discussed his country’s current position in the region.
Zarif downplayed Iran’s role in backing proxies and also said Israel would continue to face “resistance” even if it had damaged Hezbollah and Hamas.
He also minimized the damage done to Iran’s air defenses in October. “The story about destroying our air defense is a story, and there is a reason behind it... We suffered, but it didn’t mean that we lost our air defenses,” Zarif said.
Iran and its proxies have suffered setbacks in the production of rocket fuel.
For example, an Israeli raid in September 2024 destroyed a site for producing solid propellant rocket motors in Masyaf, Syria.
This site had been used by the Syrian regime led by then-president Bashar al-Assad and was linked to Iran’s role in the region. Assad’s regime fell on December 8.
The raid also destroyed industrial mixers that are used for the solid rocket fuel. Solid rockets can be launched faster than liquid-fueled rockets.
Solid rockets are also cheaper, easier to store and maintain, and easier to roll out and use.
However, they are less easy to control compared to liquid-fueled rockets. These are faster to deploy, so there is less time to detect them being set up and readied for launch.