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In a move which has shifted the US-Israel war on Iran up a gear, Israel struck Iran’s critical South Pars gasfield on Wednesday. Soon after, Iran hit energy facilities across the Gulf region, including a gas facility at Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant early on Thursday.
It is the latest escalation in a war that began on February 28 when the United States and Israel bombed Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials in Tehran. Iran has responded by targeting Israel, but has also struck many of its Gulf neighbours.
Here is what happened at South Pars and Ras Laffan, and why it is so significant.
What happened at South Pars and Ras Laffan?
On Wednesday, Iranian state media reported that natural gas facilities associated with the South Pars field had been attacked.
Following this, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened to attack oil and gas infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a move that would further seriously disrupt the region’s energy infrastructure, which has already been fractured by the war, now in its 20th day.
Hours later, Iranian missiles struck a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City in northern Qatar. Doha reported that the attack caused three fires.
Qatar’s Ministry of Interior said a fire at the site had been preliminarily brought under control and that no injuries were reported.
How has Qatar responded to Iranian strikes on energy facilities?
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday: “The State of Qatar expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Iranian attack targeting Ras Laffan Industrial City, which caused fires resulting in significant damage to the facility.”
“All personnel have been accounted for and no casualties have been reported at this time,” QatarEnergy, the world’s largest LNG producer, said.
In another statement early on Thursday, QatarEnergy reported that several other LNG facilities had also been struck, “causing sizeable fires and extensive further damage”.
In response, Qatar expelled several Iranian military and diplomatic personnel from the country, declaring them persona non grata and ordering them to leave within 24 hours.
What has the US said about these strikes?
President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that neither the US nor Qatar had any involvement in or prior knowledge of Israel’s initial strike on the South Pars field.
“Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility,” Trump wrote.
He also guaranteed that Israel would not attack the South Pars field again unless “Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar”.
Trump added that, in this case, the US “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”.
How have other affected nations responded?
Following a meeting on Wednesday of top diplomats from several Arab and Muslim countries in Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told the media on Thursday that the Gulf states’ tolerance of Iran’s attacks on their territory would be limited.
He warned that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have “very significant capacities and capabilities” that could be drawn on should they “choose to do so”.
“The patience that is being exhibited is not unlimited. Do they [the Iranians] have a day, two, a week? I’m not going to telegraph that,” Prince Faisal added.
How significant is the South Pars natural gasfield?
South Pars is part of the world’s largest natural gasfield, which spans 9,700sq km (3,745sq miles), and is shared by Iran and Qatar. It is located near the Iranian coastal city of Asaluyeh.
About one-third of this field is Iranian, called South Pars, while the Qatari side of it is called the North Field.
The attack on South Pars is unlikely to affect international energy supplies a great deal, as Iran uses most of the gas extracted from the field domestically.
Iran is the fourth-largest consumer of LNG in the world after the US, Russia and China, according to the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. It relies heavily on natural gas for heating homes and generating electricity.
South Pars is Iran’s biggest source of domestic gas supply, providing 80 percent of the country’s natural gas needs.
South Pars does export some gas to Iraq. Overall, Iran supplies roughly one‑third of Iraq’s gas and power needs, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted Electricity Ministry spokesperson Ahmad Moussa as saying that Iranian gas supplies to the country had been halted due to recent regional developments, sharply curbing power production.
How significant is Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility?
The Ras Laffan complex, located 80km (50 miles) northeast of the Qatari capital, Doha, is the world’s largest LNG production facility, producing about 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply and playing a major role in balancing Asian and European markets’ demand for the fuel.
At the start of March, just days into the war, Qatar suspended LNG production following an attack close to the Ras Laffan facility as well as on a water tank at a power plant in Mesaieed Industrial City.
Rachel Ziemba, a senior fellow at the think tank Center for a New American Security, said the fact that Ras Laffan had already paused production meant there would be no immediate new global supply shock in the near term as a result of the latest strikes.
“But it could put further pressure on regional power supplies,” Ziemba told Al Jazeera. She added that it also “risks prices staying high for longer”.
Tom Marzec-Manser, director of gas and LNG at the United Kingdom-based analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, told Al Jazeera that because of the extensive damage to Ras Laffan on Wednesday, even when the Iran conflict ends and if the Strait of Hormuz reopens, Qatari LNG production will not fully resume within a few weeks as previously expected.
“It could easily take months for nameplate capacity to return, and there will also be an impact on the timeline of the new projects at North Field East and South.”
Babak Hafezi, professor of international business at American University, said rising LNG prices would affect European markets which have become increasingly reliant on LNG “since the start of the Ukrainian war and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines”.
Other significant economies reliant on LNG include Japan, Turkiye and India.
“Smaller countries with weaker economies in the Global South will be hurt the most, as LNG price increases will lead to demand destruction,” Hafezi told Al Jazeera.
Which other sites were targeted by Iran since Wednesday?
Saudi Arabia said it intercepted and destroyed four ballistic missiles launched towards Riyadh on Wednesday, as well as an attempted drone attack on a gas facility in its east. On Thursday, Iran again targeted Riyadh.
Meanwhile, operations were suspended at the Habshan gas facility in the western region of Abu Dhabi, as UAE authorities responded to two incidents of falling debris after the successful interception of a missile, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said. It added that the Bab oilfield, south of Abu Dhabi, had also been targeted.
What impact have the latest strikes had on energy prices and stocks?
Following the series of attacks, LNG wholesale prices in Europe jumped to their highest level in more than three years.
The price of gas at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands, Europe’s main gas trading hub, had risen by 13.36 euros ($15.33) to 68.03 euros ($78.06) per megawatt hour by 09:07 GMT on Thursday.
The price of crude oil also soared further, with Brent crude – the global benchmark – reaching $115 a barrel, exacerbating an already looming energy crisis due to the war. Brent crude was trading at about $65 a barrel before the war began.
Oil prices initially surged when, on March 2, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the Strait of Hormuz – through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas is transported – was “closed”.
