Iran vows retaliation against energy sites across Gulf after largest gasfield hit

Iran has vowed to retaliate against oil and gas facilities across the Gulf after missiles hit South Pars, part of the world’s largest gasfield and the backbone of the Islamic republic’s domestic energy system. 

The strike, which Iranian officials warned would trigger a significant escalation of the conflict, was the first against Iranian energy production facilities since the US and Israel launched their war on February 28, and also targeted petrochemical facilities fed by the field, Iranian state media said.

Oil and gas prices jumped as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued evacuation notices to some of the biggest energy facilities across the Gulf, including Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG plant, facilities in the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery, which sits in the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

In early afternoon trading, Brent crude oil was up over 5 per cent at nearly $109 a barrel, its highest level since March 9, while European natural gas prices jumped 6.6 per cent to almost €55 per MWh.

The strike on South Pars is the first time that Iran’s upstream gas production has been targeted. Iranian state media has previously reported that the facilities provide more than two-thirds of the country’s domestic gas. Neither the US nor Israel immediately said who was behind the attack.

Natural gas is the largest source of fuel for electricity generation in Iran, accounting for 85 per cent of total generation, according to the US’s Energy Information Administration.

A former Iranian oil official said the war is now in the “beginning of a far more dangerous phase” and added that Iran “will level” Qatar’s gas platforms “to the ground if Iran’s main refineries are hit”.

Iranian officials said four parts of the South Pars petrochemical facilities were struck and were forced offline “in order to control and prevent the spread of fire”, but the full extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

No deaths were reported in the attack. 

Qatar condemned the air strike that targeted the gas facilities, describing it as a “dangerous” and “irresponsible step amid the current military escalation in the region”. 

South Pars is part of the world’s largest natural gasfield and is an extension of Qatar’s North Field, which before the conflict had helped turn Doha into one of the world’s largest suppliers of liquefied natural gas. Qatar has already been forced to suspend its production because of an Iranian drone attack on its main LNG facility.

“Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region and its environment,” Qatari government spokesperson Majid al-Ansra said. 

The governor of Iran’s gas and petrochemical hub of Assaluyeh, which is fed by South Pars, said the strikes meant “the pendulum of war has swung” to a “full-scale economic war”.

Eskandar Pasalar condemned the attack as “political suicide” by the US and Israel and said it marks a “new phase of war equations”.

“Energy security in the region has reached the point of zero,” he said in comments in state media.

Iran’s central military command said a severe response to the attack was imminent.

Iran has struck energy facilities across the Gulf during the war, including hitting refineries in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and targeted oil and gasfields in both countries.