A sweeping energy strike threat from Iran followed an Israeli attack on the South Pars gasfield on Wednesday, as the Revolutionary Guards announced imminent strikes against facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Specific targets were named and evacuation orders issued. Oil prices climbed sharply toward $110 a barrel as the scale and specificity of Iran’s threat alarmed global energy markets.
South Pars is the world’s largest natural gas reserve, shared between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli attack on the field — reportedly with US backing — was the first direct strike on Iranian fossil fuel production in the conflict. Washington and Tel Aviv had previously avoided this move, knowing that targeting Iranian energy infrastructure could trigger exactly the kind of sweeping response now unfolding. The calculation had changed, and the consequences were immediate.
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 imminent targets. All personnel were instructed to evacuate immediately. The governor of Asaluyeh province condemned the US-Israeli escalation as “political suicide” and declared the war had entered a total economic war phase.
Brent crude rose nearly 5% to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas benchmarks jumped more than 7.5%. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels due to infrastructure attacks and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had maintained its own crude shipments through the strait while choking off its neighbors’ exports — a strategic weapon it had wielded throughout the conflict. The threat of strikes on Gulf energy facilities threatened to deepen an already critical global supply crisis.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that targeting energy infrastructure constituted a serious threat to global energy security and regional populations. The sweeping nature of Iran’s threat — covering facilities in three countries and naming specific sites — gave it a credibility and urgency that energy markets and governments could not dismiss. With Iran’s clock running, the world faced an energy crisis of historic proportions.