Iran’s oil infrastructure may be the source of a suspected slick off a key island export terminal, but satellite images showed it is “much reduced”, an environmental group tells AFP.

Satellite images in the past days appeared to show an oil slick spreading off the coast of Iran’s Kharg Island. It was not immediately clear what had caused the apparent spill off the island’s west coast.

“The cause and origin of the slick remain unknown and cannot be determined conclusively from the available imagery alone,” a UK-based non-governmental organisation, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, tells AFP.

“While offshore infrastructure in the wider area could be a potential source, we are unable to identify a definitive point of origin or attribute the spill to a specific cause at this time,” says Leon Moreland from the observatory.

But, he adds, “the slick appears visually consistent with oil based on analysis” of imagery from the Copernicus Data Space browser.