Iran’s retaliation threat following the South Pars strike left no safe haven in the Gulf energy sector on Wednesday, as the Revolutionary Guards named specific facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar as imminent targets. Evacuation orders were issued alongside the target list. Oil prices surged toward $110 a barrel as the elimination of safe havens in the Gulf energy sector raised fears of a supply disruption of historic proportions.
South Pars holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is shared between Iran and Qatar. The Israeli strike on the field — reportedly with US authorization — was unprecedented and broke the constraint that had kept Iranian fossil fuel infrastructure off the battlefield. The decision to cross this line triggered Iran’s most sweeping and specific military threat of the war — one that left no safe haven in the Gulf energy sector.
Named targets in Iran’s state media included Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery and Jubail complex, the UAE’s al-Hosn gasfield, and Qatar’s Mesaieed and Ras Laffan facilities. All workers and residents near these sites were told to evacuate without delay. Asaluyeh governor Eskandar Pasalar condemned the US-Israeli escalation as “political suicide” and said the conflict had entered a full-scale economic warfare phase.
Brent crude climbed nearly 5% to $108.60 per barrel, while European gas benchmarks surged more than 7.5% to over €55.50 per megawatt hour. Gulf oil exports had already been reduced by 60% from pre-war volumes due to sustained infrastructure attacks and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade. Iran had continued to export its own crude through the strait unimpeded while blocking Gulf neighbors from doing so — a strategic asymmetry that had given it enormous economic leverage throughout the conflict.
Qatar’s government spokesperson warned that attacking energy infrastructure threatened global energy security and regional populations. The elimination of safe havens in the Gulf energy sector was a development without modern precedent — one that placed every major energy asset in the region under potential military threat simultaneously. For global energy markets, the absence of safe havens meant the absence of certainty — and the coming hours would determine just how dangerous the resulting uncertainty would be.