Gas field attacks send energy prices soaring; Trump threatens Tehran
Molten fireballs and belching smoke over the Middle East Thursday morning signaled a dramatic escalation of the war in Iran – and its threat to the global economy.
Israel launched a major strike on Iran’s largest gas field, South Pars, triggering retaliation by Tehran against key energy sites in the Gulf Arab states.
Like the blocked Strait of Hormuz, these facilities dictate global prices for energy and other goods, which soared early Thursday. Economists fear this disruption could cause a global economic shock. causing price hikes and shortages for billions of people.
As U.S. allies in the Gulf and Europe expressed fury, President Donald Trump said Israel would not launch more attacks on the gas field unless Iran again bombs its U.S. partner Qatar. If Tehran did so, he vowed it would “massively detonate the entire South Pars gas field.”
Qatar is furious with Iran but also with the United States and Israel, a senior official close to its leaders told NBC News. The Gulf kingdom is furious that a war designed in part to protect oil and gas flows is now setting fire to its vital infrastructure, the official said.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the escalation “reckless,” adding that he hopes “everyone will come to their senses.”
International benchmark Brent crude rose as high as $119 a barrel, and wholesale natural gas prices in Europe rose sharply, by as much as 25%. Both fell slightly during the morning, although they remained significantly elevated from their pre-war levels.
The latest flashpoint started on Wednesday when Iranian state media said Israel had bombed facilities associated with the South Pars gas field, which it shares with Qatar. Video posted on social media and geotagged by NBC News showed surging fireballs and the sky filled with black smoke above a refinery in Asaluyeh, on Iran’s Gulf coast.
In response, Iran bombed the industrial city of Ras Laffan in Qatar, a vast steel complex of refineries, storage tanks and pipelines processing liquefied natural gas, or LNG. It also hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and two Kuwaiti oil refineries.
QatarEnergy, the world’s largest LNG supplier, said in a statement that the attacks caused “significant fires and other significant damage” but that these were extinguished without causing any casualties.
Trump said the United States “knew nothing” about the attack on Israel, which, he wrote in a Truth Social article Wednesday night, he “responded violently” out of “anger over what happened in the Middle East.”
The senior official close to Qatari leaders disputed Trump’s assertion that the United States knew nothing.
Axios, citing unnamed U.S. and Israeli officials, reported that Trump was aware and that the United States had in fact “given the green light” and coordinated the attack with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The aim was to “deter Iran from continuing to disrupt oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz,” Axios reports citing Israeli officials.
The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Gulf countries have condemned the escalation, and some have even raised the possibility of their own direct involvement.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told NBC News in Riyadh of Tehran’s retaliation that “what little trust there was had been completely shattered.”
Some analysts came away from the exchange with the assessment that “it really looks like Iran has won this round,” as Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group think tank, told X.
“Iran has gained the upper hand,” agreed Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies, affiliated with Tel Aviv University in Israel.
“He has demonstrated once again that he will not hesitate to raise the level of escalation to defend his strategic assets, without backing down on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote. “It was completely predictable.”
It would probably be impossible to “blow up the entirety” of South Pars, analysts say.
It is a large, complex body of porous rock that formed over millions of years. It lies approximately 3,000 meters below the seafloor and covers roughly the same area as Rhode Island.
“But you can cause large-scale disruption because these facilities are extremely delicate,” said Michael Stephens, a senior research associate at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “Trump understands this, which is why he wants to avoid further attacks on the gas fields.”
