US President Donald Trump threatened to “massively blow up” the world’s largest gasfield after Israeli strikes on the Iranian site prompted Tehran to step up attacks on energy facilities across the Middle East, The Guardian reported.
Israel’s decision to target the South Pars gasfield on Wednesday marked a major escalation of the war, heightening fears of significant disruption to international energy supplies.
Iran promptly retaliated with fresh attacks across the region, including on Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities – infuriating the US president.
Oil and European natural gas prices rose sharply, with Brent crude – the international benchmark for oil – up 6% at $114 a barrel. Gas prices jumped 23%. Leading Asian stock markets came under pressure, with the Nikkei 225 falling 3.4% in Japan.
The US “knew nothing” of the Israeli attack on South Pars, Trump claimed on social media on Wednesday night. US media reported earlier that the US was aware of the attack. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed US officials, that the president approved of it, in a bid to pressure Tehran into unblocking the strait of Hormuz.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi said it had been forced to shut down operations at its Habshan gas facility and Bab field because of Iranian attacks that it called a “dangerous escalation” of the war.
Ras Laffan in Qatar, the site of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas hub, has now suffered “extensive damage” after strikes by Iran, the state-run QatarEnergy giant said. Early on Thursday, QatarEnergy reported “sizeable fires” and significant damage at several LNG facilities at the hub. The Qatari interior ministry later said that all fires had been contained.
The strike on South Pars amounted to the first targeted attacks on Iranian fossil fuel production since the US and Israel launched the conflict, almost three weeks ago.
Qatar, which shares the gasfield with Iran, “was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it [the attack], nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen”, Trump said, adding that Israel would not attack the gasfield again unless Iran attacked Qatari gas facilities again.
If Tehran chose to retaliate, Trump said: “The United States of America, 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.”
