Iran threatens Gulf energy targets after huge gas field is struck

Summary

• Pars is Iran's sector of the world's largest gas deposit, shared with Qatar
• Iran confirms killing of Iranian intelligence minister
• Tehran strikes Israel after killing of security chief Larijani
• Israel launches strikes across Lebanon

Iran's huge Pars gas field was hit on Wednesday (18 March) in the first reported strikes on Iran's Gulf energy infrastructure of the US-Israeli war, prompting Tehran to announce it would respond with attacks on oil and gas ​targets throughout the Gulf.

Oil prices shot up after the attack, a major escalation in a war that has already halted shipping from the world's most important energy-producing region and could now bring lasting ‌damage to its infrastructure. Benchmark Brent crude prices rose around 5% to above $108. Stock markets veered lower.

Pars is the Iranian sector of the world's largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar across the Gulf. Iran's Fars news agency reported that gas tanks and parts of a refinery had been hit, workers had been evacuated to a safe location and emergency crews were trying to put out a fire. State media later said the fire was under control.

The attack was widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel ​with US consent, though neither country acknowledged immediate responsibility. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment.

Qatar, a close US ally which hosts the largest US airbase in the region, blamed the attack on ​Israel without mentioning any US role. The Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson called it a "dangerous and irresponsible" escalation that put global energy security at risk. The UAE also denounced the ⁠attack.

Iran listed an array of prominent regional oil and gas targets belonging to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which it said were now "direct and legitimate targets" and should be evacuated at once before it struck them in the coming hours.

Previously ​during nearly three weeks of war, the US and Israel had held back from targeting Iran's energy production facilities in the Gulf, averting Iranian retaliation against the oil and gas industries of its neighbours.

Iran has already shut the Strait of Hormuz ​where 20% of oil and liquefied natural gas is normally shipped past its coast, but consuming nations have hoped the disruption will be short-lived as long as production infrastructure is spared.

Iran's warning was directed at Saudi Arabia's Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex, the UAE's Al Hosn Gas Field, and Qatar's Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Holding Company and Ras Laffan Refinery.

'Everyone is in the crosshairs'

The Israeli military also hit central Beirut, destroying apartment buildings in some of the most intense airstrikes on the Lebanese capital for decades, on Israel's other front in the ​war it launched with the US against Iran.

Israel killed Iran's intelligence minister Esmail Khatib on Wednesday, a day after killing powerful security chief Ali Larijani.

"No one in Iran has immunity and everyone is in the crosshairs," said Defence Minister Israel Katz. ​He and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorised the Israeli military "to target any senior Iranian official for whom an intelligence and operational opportunity arises, without the need for additional approval", Katz said.

It appeared to be the first time Israel has publicly stated that it ‌would let the ⁠military target enemy officials without seeking special permission from political leaders.

In Tehran, thousands of people appeared in the streets for a funeral for Larijani and other slain figures. The crowd waved Iranian flags and carried portraits of the dead as a eulogist sang: "Martyrs are leading the way, they've become more alive, burning with love."

Iran retaliated for the killing of Larijani by firing missiles at Israel, which Israeli authorities said killed two people near Tel Aviv. Tehran said it fired overnight on Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba in Israel, and at US bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Energy prices surge

The attack on Iran's gas field threatens to worsen an unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies that has raised ​the political stakes for US President Donald Trump. Diesel ​prices in the United States have already risen above $5 ⁠a gallon for the first time since the 2022 inflation surge that eroded support for his predecessor Joe Biden.

Israel has stepped up strikes on Lebanon and a ground assault in the south in pursuit of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.

In central Beirut's Bachoura district, Israel warned residents early on Wednesday to ​leave a building it said was used by Hezbollah, which it then completely flattened.

Abu Khalil, who lives in the area, said he had helped people flee nearby homes ​after the Israeli warning. "It's just an ⁠operation to hurt, to terrify people, to terrify children," he told Reuters, insisting there were no military targets nearby.

No similar warnings were given for strikes that hit apartment buildings in two other central districts, killing at least 10 people, according to Lebanese authorities.

Inside Israel, the ambulance service reported that a 44-year-old man and two children, aged 13 and 12, in Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, were hospitalised with blast injuries following an Iranian missile attack. In a separate incident, an Iranian missile tore a crater ⁠into the pavement ​and set cars ablaze in a residential area of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv.

"There was an alarm, we went into the shelter, ​we heard a crazy boom," resident Leah Palteal told Reuters.

US-based Iran human rights group HRANA said on Monday that an estimated 3,000-plus people had been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began on 28 February. Authorities in Lebanon say 900 people have been killed there and 800,000 forced ​to flee their homes.

Iranian attacks have killed people in Iraq and across the Gulf states. Fourteen have been killed in Israel.