Iran has threatened to attack oil and gas facilities in the Gulf region following the Israeli strike on its South Pars gasfield on Wednesday.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency shared a statement on Wednesday, stating that Iranian authorities intend to target five facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar in the coming hours.
The facilities are Saudi Arabia’s SAMREF refinery and Jubail petrochemical complex; the UAE’s Al Hosn gasfield; and Qatar’s Ras Laffan refinery, Mesaieed petrochemical complex, and holding company.
The threat follows Iranian state media’s report of attacks on natural gas facilities linked to its offshore South Pars field, the world’s largest gasfield situated off the coast of southern Iran’s Bushehr province.
Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum, in a statement shared by Tasnim, reported that several facilities were damaged, but thankfully, no immediate casualties have been reported. Iranian state media has also confirmed that the fire at the gasfield is under control.
Israel and the US have carried out strikes on a range of targets across Iran, including oil facilities, since the war began on February 28.
Despite growing concerns about the conflict’s widening impact on global energy markets, retaliatory Iranian missile and drone attacks on countries in the wider Middle East, including Arab Gulf states, have continued.
Despite growing concerns about the conflict’s widening impact on global energy markets, retaliatory Iranian missile and drone attacks on countries in the wider Middle East, including Arab Gulf states, have continued.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned that if Iran continued targeting Qatar’s energy facilities, America would “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field.”
Qatar said Wednesday that Iranian missiles caused “extensive damage” at Ras Laffan Industrial City, home to the largest liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export facility in the world.
In a social media post Wednesday night, Trump said that “the United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.”
