SODIUM PERCHLORATE
■ This document contains redacted sections. Material has been withheld by the compiler.
On June 13, 2025, combined Israeli and US strikes hit Iranian nuclear facilities in what became known as the 12 Day War. The strikes degraded Iran’s enrichment capacity significantly. The missile infrastructure sustained substantial but unquantified damage.
I began tracking Iran’s reconstruction effort through procurement data six weeks after the strikes concluded.
This is public data, assembled differently. No one else has assembled it this way.
Method. Iran’s ballistic missile program relies primarily on solid-fuel propellant. Solid rocket propellant requires an oxidizer. The standard oxidizer is ammonium perchlorate, which is derived from sodium perchlorate precursors. A full reconstitution of Iran’s pre-strike medium-range missile inventory would require procurement at a scale visible in international shipping data.
I cross-referenced three data sources:
- Maritime shipping manifests filed with the International Maritime Organization
- Chemical export declarations from jurisdictions with public filing requirements
- AIS vessel tracking data for vessels operating in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea corridors
I was looking for anomalous volumes of sodium perchlorate or known precursor chemicals moving through intermediary ports inconsistent with their stated end-use.
Findings. Between August and December 2024, I identified a pattern consistent with approximately 4,200 metric tons of sodium perchlorate precursors transiting through the Indian Ocean corridor. The routing:
- Origin points: chemical production facilities in Shandong Province, China and Gujarat, India
- Transit ports: Sohar, Oman and Jebel Ali, UAE
- Declared end-use: “industrial applications” at facilities in ports I have assessed as having no relevant chemical processing or industrial capacity
I do not have access to classified intelligence. I have access to patience.
At standard conversion ratios, 4,200 metric tons of precursors would yield sufficient ammonium perchlorate to produce solid propellant for approximately 800 medium-range ballistic missiles. This figure is consistent with — but does not prove — a full reconstitution of Iran’s pre-strike inventory.
I present this as an observation, not a conclusion.
The MV Ardavan. One vessel appeared in my data four times between September and November 2024. The MV Ardavan, registered under the Panamanian flag, followed the same transit route on each occasion: origin port in Gujarat, transiting through Sohar, with a declared destination that changed each trip.
The vessel’s registered owner was a company incorporated in Dubai in 2019. The company was dissolved in January 2025. No public record explains the dissolution.
| Transit | Date | Origin | Transit port | Declared destination |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2024-09-07 | Mundra, Gujarat | Sohar, Oman | Bandar Imam Khomeini |
| 2 | 2024-09-29 | Mundra, Gujarat | Jebel Ali, UAE | Chabahar |
| 3 | 2024-10-18 | Mundra, Gujarat | Sohar, Oman | Bandar Abbas |
| 4 | 2024-11-14 | Mundra, Gujarat | Sohar, Oman | Chabahar |
I cannot verify what was aboard. I can verify that the route, the timing, the frequency, and the subsequent dissolution of the owning company are anomalous.
Three sections in this file are flagged as unverified. Two concern secondary vessels whose manifests I have been unable to fully cross-reference. The third is below.
The registered agent for the company that owned the MV Ardavan before its dissolution in January 2025 shares a correspondence address with
I stopped editing this file on January 19, 2025. I am not prepared to publish the connection I found. It links this procurement analysis to a corporate structure I have been monitoring in a different context. The implications are significant and I will not speculate in writing until I have verification.
The verification is what I sent Maren to find.