Iran Can Lay Hundreds of Mines in the Strait of Hormuz Faster Than Anyone Can Clear Them

Iran maintains an estimated stockpile of 2,000 to 6,000 naval mines — largely produced by Iran, China, and Russia — and retains 80 to 90 percent of its small boat fleet capable of minelaying. Each small craft can carry two to three mines, and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) operates hundreds of these boats. In March 2026, Iran began laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz using small craft deploying Iranian-manufactured Maham 3 and Maham 7 limpet mines, with US officials confirming at least a dozen mines in the waterway within days. This is catastrophic because the Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20 percent of global oil supply. Even a partially mined strait does not need to sink a tanker to be effective — the mere credible presence of mines causes insurance rates to spike, shipping companies to reroute, and oil prices to surge. During the 1987-88 Tanker War, a single Iranian mine that struck the USS Samuel B. Roberts cost $96 million in repairs and nearly sank the frigate. The asymmetry is staggering: Iran can mine the strait for a few million dollars in total expenditure, while the economic damage from even a partial closure runs into hundreds of billions. The structural problem is that mine clearance is inherently slower than minelaying. A small boat can drop a mine overboard in seconds; finding and neutralizing that mine takes hours or days per unit. The US and its allies cannot clear mines faster than Iran can lay them, especially when Iran's small-boat fleet can operate from dozens of coastal inlets along the strait's northern shore. No amount of airstrikes on minelayers solves the problem of mines already in the water, and the current MCM fleet is far too small to sweep the strait's shipping lanes in any operationally relevant timeframe.