Iran’s energy warning against Gulf states on Wednesday could trigger the worst oil shock in decades, analysts warned, after the Revolutionary Guards threatened strikes against facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar following an Israeli attack on the South Pars gasfield. Specific targets were named and evacuation orders issued. Oil prices had already surged toward $110 a barrel — and the potential for the worst oil shock in decades was being priced into every energy market in the world.
South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas reserve, is shared between Iran and Qatar and central to Iran’s gas economy. The Israeli attack — reportedly with US consent — was the first direct strike on Iranian fossil fuel production in the conflict. Both countries had previously avoided this move, understanding that crossing this threshold could trigger the kind of catastrophic oil shock that analysts were now warning about.
Iran’s state broadcaster named Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery and Jubail complex, the UAE’s al-Hosn gasfield, and Qatar’s Mesaieed and Ras Laffan facilities as targets for imminent strikes. Workers and residents near these sites were told to leave immediately. The governor of Asaluyeh province called the US-Israeli attack “political suicide” and declared the conflict had entered a full-scale economic war.
Brent crude climbed to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas prices jumped more than 7.5%. Gulf oil exports had already fallen 60% from pre-war levels due to sustained infrastructure damage and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Earlier in the conflict, oil had briefly surpassed $116 a barrel. If Iran’s threatened strikes on Gulf energy facilities were carried out, analysts warned that prices could surge well beyond that level — potentially triggering the worst oil shock since the 1970s.
Qatar’s government spokesperson Majid al-Ansari warned that targeting energy infrastructure endangered global energy security, the environment, and millions of regional residents. The warning of the worst oil shock in decades was not hyperbole — it was a sober assessment of what the combination of Iran’s threatened strikes, already diminished Gulf supply, and a blockaded Strait of Hormuz could produce. The coming hours would determine whether the warning would be borne out.