The world was drawn into the Gulf energy crisis on Wednesday as Iran and Israel’s energy confrontation reached its most dangerous point following an Israeli strike on the South Pars gasfield. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened sweeping strikes against energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, naming specific targets and ordering evacuation. Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the confrontation’s global implications became impossible to ignore.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is shared between Iran and Qatar and fundamental to Iran’s gas economy. The Israeli strike — reportedly with US consent — was the first direct attack on Iranian fossil fuel production in the conflict. Both countries had previously avoided this step, but crossing it triggered Iran’s most specific and globally significant retaliatory threat of the war.
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 for strikes in the coming hours. All workers and residents were ordered to leave immediately. Governor Eskandar Pasalar of Asaluyeh condemned the US-Israeli escalation as “political suicide” and said the war had entered a full-scale economic phase that the world could no longer treat as a regional problem.
Oil prices rose to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas markets surged more than 7.5%. 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 to export its own crude through the strait unimpeded while blocking Gulf neighbors’ shipments — a strategic advantage that had shaped the conflict’s economic dimension throughout and now threatened to be extended through a new wave of strikes.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that targeting energy infrastructure was a grave threat to global energy security. The world had been drawn into the Gulf crisis not just as observers but as stakeholders — energy consumers, importers, and economies that depended on Gulf supply and would feel the consequences of its disruption. The confrontation had become a global crisis, and the coming hours would reveal how deep its impact would ultimately run.