Oil markets descended into chaos on Wednesday after Iran declared an energy war against Gulf states following the bombing of the South Pars gasfield by Israeli forces. The Revolutionary Guards named specific facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar as imminent targets and ordered immediate evacuation. Brent crude surged nearly 5% to $108.60 a barrel while European gas prices jumped more than 7.5%, as the declaration’s full implications rattled global trading floors.
South Pars holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is shared between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli bombing — reportedly with US consent — was the first direct attack on Iranian fossil fuel production in the conflict. Washington and Tel Aviv had previously avoided this step, but the decision to bomb South Pars triggered Iran’s most sweeping and specific energy war declaration of the entire conflict.
Threatened facilities listed by Iran’s state media included Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery and Jubail complex, the UAE’s al-Hosn gasfield, and Qatar’s Mesaieed and Ras Laffan facilities. All workers and residents were ordered to evacuate without delay. Asaluyeh governor Eskandar Pasalar condemned the US-Israeli attack as “political suicide” and declared Iran was now in a total economic war it would prosecute without hesitation.
European gas markets climbed to over €55.50 per megawatt hour, while oil pushed toward $110. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war volumes, devastated by infrastructure damage and Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had maintained its own crude exports through the strait unimpeded while choking off its neighbors’ shipments — a strategic advantage that had persisted throughout the conflict and threatened to be compounded by a new and devastating wave of energy strikes.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that attacking energy infrastructure was a direct threat to global energy security, the environment, and millions of people across the region. The chaos in oil markets reflected the reality that the world’s energy system had entered uncharted territory — one in which the Gulf’s most critical energy infrastructure was a primary battlefield, and in which the consequences for global energy supply and prices were impossible to fully quantify.