President Trump has said Israel will not target Iranian gas infrastructure again, after “lashing out” and striking a processing facility at the world’s biggest natural gas field. If Iran retaliated again, however, Trump warned in a social media post, Israel could strike again, Reuters reported, citing the U.S. president.
The Israelis hit the field that Iran calls South Pars and Qatar, which shares it, calls the North Field, earlier this week. In response, Iran told neighboring countries to evacuate a number of oil and gas facilities and then proceeded to deliver retaliatory strikes, including against QatarEnergy’s LNG hub, Ras Laffan.
Qatar reported there was “extensive damage” done to the facility. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, reported it had intercepted four ballistic missiles shot at Riyadh. The UAE said it had suspended operations at a natural gas facility due to missile-related incidents and debris.
As a result of the latest military exchange, oil and gas prices moved higher, with Brent crude trading at $112.34 per barrel at the time of writing, and West Texas Intermediate at $97.62 per barrel. Gas prices were up by over 3% in the United States, at $3.17 per mmBtu.
“Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” President Trump posted on X. “Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility.”
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” the U.S. president also wrote, proceeding then to threaten to “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.”
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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