Iran’s Revolutionary Guards formally declared Gulf energy sites as war targets on Wednesday after Israeli bombs struck the South Pars gasfield — the world’s largest natural gas reserve. Facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar were named as imminent targets and their workers ordered to evacuate. The declaration sent oil prices surging toward $110 a barrel and placed global energy markets in a state of acute anxiety.
South Pars, shared between Iran and Qatar, has been the foundation of Iran’s gas export economy for decades. The Israeli bombing of the field — reportedly with US authorization — was the first direct attack on Iranian fossil fuel production since the war began. Washington and Tel Aviv had previously maintained that energy infrastructure would remain off the battlefield, a constraint now abandoned — and immediately answered by Iran’s most expansive military threat of the entire conflict.
Iran’s state media identified the Samref refinery and Jubail complex in Saudi Arabia, al-Hosn gasfield in the UAE, and Mesaieed and Ras Laffan in Qatar as targets for strikes in the coming hours. Workers and residents were instructed to evacuate without delay. Asaluyeh governor Eskandar Pasalar condemned the US-Israeli escalation as “political suicide” and declared Iran was now at war on a full economic front.
Oil prices climbed to $108.60 per barrel — a nearly 5% gain — while European gas benchmarks surged more than 7.5% to over €55.50 per megawatt hour. Gulf oil exports had already been reduced by 60% from pre-war volumes due to infrastructure damage and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had continued to export its own crude through the strait while blocking Gulf neighbors from doing so — a strategic asymmetry that had given Tehran significant leverage throughout the conflict.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that attacking energy infrastructure constituted a threat to global energy security and the environment. The formal declaration of Gulf energy sites as war targets was a significant escalation — one that placed the Gulf’s most critical infrastructure in direct military jeopardy. The world watched Iran’s retaliatory clock with growing anxiety and diminishing hope for a diplomatic resolution.