The Gulf energy sector went into freefall on Wednesday after Iran threatened sweeping retaliation against Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari energy infrastructure following Israeli bombing of the South Pars gasfield. The Revolutionary Guards named specific targets and issued evacuation orders, declaring the sites were “direct and legitimate targets.” Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the sector’s most acute crisis of the entire conflict unfolded in real time.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is jointly managed between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli bombing — reportedly with US authorization — was the first direct attack on Iranian fossil fuel production since the war began. Washington and Tel Aviv had previously treated energy infrastructure as off-limits, but crossing that line immediately triggered Iran’s most specific and credible retaliatory threat of the war.
Iran’s state broadcaster named the Samref refinery and Jubail complex in Saudi Arabia, al-Hosn gasfield in the UAE, and Mesaieed and Ras Laffan in Qatar as imminent targets. All personnel were told to evacuate without delay. The Asaluyeh provincial governor called the US-Israeli strikes “political suicide” and declared the conflict had entered a full-scale economic war phase.
Brent crude rose nearly 5% to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas benchmarks surged more than 7.5% to above €55.50 per megawatt hour. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels due to infrastructure damage and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had continued exporting its own crude through the strait unimpeded while preventing Gulf neighbors from doing so — a strategic imbalance that now threatened to be compounded by a new wave of devastating strikes on Gulf energy sites.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that attacking energy infrastructure threatened global energy security and regional welfare. The freefall in Gulf energy sector confidence reflected a world suddenly confronting the prospect that none of the region’s most critical energy assets were safe from military action. The coming hours would determine how far the sector’s crisis would deepen — and how much damage the global energy system could absorb.