Iran unleashed its most sweeping Gulf energy threat on Wednesday after an Israeli strike on the South Pars gasfield changed the rules of the conflict. The Revolutionary Guards named specific facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar as targets for imminent strikes and ordered immediate evacuation. Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the unleashing of Iran’s threat demonstrated how dramatically the conflict’s rules had changed.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is shared between Iran and Qatar and central to Iran’s energy economy. The Israeli strike — reportedly with US consent — was the first direct attack on Iranian fossil fuel production, changing the rules of engagement that both sides had implicitly observed. The new rules, in Iran’s interpretation, permitted and required the targeting of Gulf energy infrastructure as direct retaliation.
Iran’s state broadcaster 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. Workers and residents were ordered to evacuate without delay. Governor Eskandar Pasalar of Asaluyeh called the US-Israeli rule change “political suicide” and declared the conflict had entered a total economic war phase.
Brent crude rose to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas benchmarks climbed more than 7.5% to above €55.50 per megawatt hour. Gulf oil exports had already been reduced by 60% from pre-war volumes due to sustained infrastructure attacks and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had continued to export its own crude through the strait unimpeded while blocking Gulf neighbors’ shipments — a strategic weapon that had given it significant leverage and now threatened to be supplemented by a devastating new wave of energy strikes.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that targeting energy infrastructure was a grave threat to global energy security and regional welfare. The new rules of the conflict — established by Israel’s strike on South Pars and confirmed by Iran’s unleashed response — would define the war’s energy dimension going forward. For global energy markets and the economies that depended on them, the new rules represented a profound and potentially lasting threat to stability.
