Iran’s Revolutionary Guards marked the Gulf’s energy map with strike targets on Wednesday after Israeli forces hit the South Pars gasfield — the world’s largest natural gas reserve. Specific facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar were named as imminent targets and workers ordered to evacuate. Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the marking of Gulf energy targets by the Guards represented the most operationally specific military declaration of the entire conflict.
South Pars, shared between Iran and Qatar, has been at the center of Iran’s gas economy throughout the conflict. The Israeli hit on the field — reportedly with US backing — was unprecedented in its direct targeting of Iranian fossil fuel production. Both countries had previously avoided this step, but crossing it triggered Iran’s most detailed and operationally specific military threat of the war.
Specific targets on the Guards’ strike map included Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery and Jubail complex, the UAE’s al-Hosn gasfield, and Qatar’s Mesaieed and Ras Laffan facilities. All personnel were instructed to evacuate immediately. The Asaluyeh governor called the US-Israeli hit “political suicide” and declared the war had entered a full-scale economic warfare phase.
Brent crude climbed nearly 5% to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas prices surged more than 7.5%. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels due to infrastructure damage and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had continued to ship its own crude through the strait unimpeded while blocking Gulf neighbors’ exports — a strategic weapon that had given it significant leverage and now threatened to be supplemented by the Guards’ marked strike targets.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that targeting energy infrastructure constituted a threat to global energy security and regional populations. The marking of the Gulf energy map with strike targets by the Revolutionary Guards was a development of historic significance — one that placed some of the world’s most valuable energy assets in direct military jeopardy and raised the prospect of a supply disruption with no modern equivalent. The world awaited the Guards’ next move.