TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iran attacked an oil refinery in Kuwait on Friday and Israel killed a spokesman of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as the US-Israeli war on Iran showed no sign of ending.
Israel promised to avoid further attacks on Iran’s South Pars gasfield the day after an Iranian retaliatory strike on Qatar caused damage that will leave the world short of natural gas for years to come.
The benchmark price of Brent crude oil stabilised at around $110 after surging the day before on growing fears that the largest ever disruption to world energy supplies would trigger a global economic shock.
But warnings mounted that even if the war ends soon, there will be no rapid recovery from the upheaval caused by airstrikes and Iran’s virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.
President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated a call for major US allies and others, none of which were consulted or advised on the war, to help secure the safety of shipping.
Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Canada pledged in a joint statement to join “appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait”.
But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made clear that this presupposed an end to combat.
French President Emmanuel Macron said after a European Union summit in Brussels that defending international law and promoting de-escalation was “the best we can do”, adding: “I have not heard anyone here express a willingness to enter this conflict — quite the opposite.”
On Friday, as Muslims around the region tried to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, and Iranians marked Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the prospect of a quick end to a war about to enter its fourth week seemed remote.
Kuwait’s state oil firm said its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery had suffered multiple drone attacks, setting some units alight.
Flows of crude and petroleum have dropped by about 12 million barrels per day – roughly 12% of global demand – due to output cuts and export halts by Gulf producers.
Those barrels cannot easily be replaced by the transport, shipping and manufacturing industries that rely on them, and will make themselves felt for months or even years.
In Tel Aviv, air raid sirens howled as explosions from interceptors rang out. The military said Iran had fired a barrage of missiles at Israel.
Prospects of a truce have not been helped by the widespread perception that Israel and the US are pursuing different goals and strategies.
“The Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership,” US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the House Intelligence Committee.
“The president said that his objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile-launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability and their navy.”
