The Gulf region was on edge Wednesday as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards set a countdown for strikes on energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar following Israeli attacks on the South Pars gasfield. Specific targets were named, evacuation orders issued, and oil markets surged sharply higher. The crisis represented the most alarming escalation in the energy dimension of the conflict to date.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, had until Wednesday remained largely untouched by the conflict. Israel’s strike on the field, reportedly approved by the US, broke that pattern and provoked an immediate and detailed response from Tehran. The attack was the first time Iran’s fossil fuel infrastructure had been directly targeted, ending months of careful restraint on both sides.
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 imminent targets. Workers and residents were publicly ordered to evacuate without delay. Governor Eskandar Pasalar of Asaluyeh said the conflict had entered a “full-scale economic war” phase and condemned the US-Israeli strikes as a strategic blunder of historic proportions.
Oil rose nearly 5% 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 levels, battered by drone and missile strikes and Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s own crude had continued flowing through the strait as it blocked its neighbors’ shipments — a dynamic that had given Tehran significant leverage.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that attacking energy infrastructure endangered global energy security and the region’s environment. The Gulf had faced energy crises before, but none quite like this — with named facilities, evacuation orders, surging oil prices, and a countdown clock all converging in a single moment of maximum danger. The world awaited Iran’s next move with unprecedented anxiety.
