Iran issued its most expansive military threat yet on Wednesday, targeting the Gulf’s energy spine after Israeli forces hit the South Pars gasfield. The Revolutionary Guards named specific facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar as imminent targets and ordered immediate evacuation. Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the threat to the Gulf’s energy spine raised fears of a catastrophic and potentially irreversible supply disruption.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is shared between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli attack — reportedly with US authorization — was the first time Iran’s fossil fuel sector had been directly targeted in the conflict. Both Washington and Tel Aviv had previously avoided this move, but crossing this line triggered Iran’s most expansive and operationally specific military threat of the entire war.
Named targets in 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. Workers and residents were ordered to leave without delay. Asaluyeh governor Eskandar Pasalar condemned the US-Israeli attack as “political suicide” and declared the war had entered a total economic warfare phase.
Brent crude climbed to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas benchmarks surged more than 7.5% to above €55.50 per megawatt hour. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels due to sustained infrastructure strikes and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had maintained its own crude exports through the strait unimpeded while blocking Gulf neighbors’ shipments — a strategic advantage it had wielded effectively throughout the conflict.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that targeting energy infrastructure was a grave threat to global energy security and regional welfare. The expansiveness of Iran’s threat — covering facilities across three countries and naming exact sites — set it apart from any previous declaration of the war. The Gulf’s energy spine was now in Iran’s crosshairs, and the world was bracing for the consequences of the most operationally specific and threatening military statement the conflict had yet produced.