A promised Iranian retaliation loomed over the Gulf on Wednesday as a crisis sparked by an Israeli attack on the South Pars gasfield pushed oil prices toward $110 a barrel. The Revolutionary Guards announced imminent strikes against energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, naming specific sites and ordering evacuations. The conflict had entered a new and potentially catastrophic energy dimension.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is shared between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli attack on the field — reportedly authorized by the US — was the first direct strike on Iranian fossil fuel production in the conflict. Until now, both Washington and Tel Aviv had deliberately held back from targeting Iranian energy assets, aware of the severe global economic consequences of crossing that line. The line had been crossed.
Iran’s state media named Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery and Jubail complex, the UAE’s al-Hosn gasfield, and Qatar’s Mesaieed and Ras Laffan facilities as targets for imminent strikes. Workers and residents were ordered to evacuate without delay. Asaluyeh governor Eskandar Pasalar said the US-Israeli strike had been “political suicide” and declared Iran was now in a full-scale economic war it had not chosen but would not avoid.
Brent crude rose nearly 5% to $108.60 a barrel, while European gas prices climbed more than 7.5%. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels, a consequence of infrastructure damage and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had been the only Gulf nation able to export crude through the strait without interruption, giving it a powerful economic weapon throughout the conflict. Any successful Iranian strikes on Gulf energy facilities could turn a severe supply shortage into a catastrophe.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that targeting energy infrastructure posed a grave threat to global energy security and regional populations. As Iran’s promised retaliation loomed and markets remained volatile, the world faced a crisis with no modern precedent — one in which the Gulf’s entire energy infrastructure was a potential battlefield, and in which the global economy hung in the balance.