FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Escalating attacks on key oil and gas facilities in the Persian Gulf have increased the risk of an extended bout of higher prices for everything from gasoline and electricity to computer chips and food.
Iran launched strikes on key Gulf infrastructure Thursday in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a natural gas field that supplies most of the country's natural gas. The tit-for-tat attacks have raised fears that the initial
price shocks at the start of the war may become more entrenched.
Gulf countries have already cut production at oil wells after the risk of Iranian strikes blocked most of the tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the oil no place to go. Even if the Strait of Hormuz becomes safe for oil tankers to transit soon, it will be some time before oil and gas begin flowing again due to the complexity of restarting refineries and other facilities. If energy infrastructure has been damaged by the ongoing attacks, it will take even longer.
Asia is getting hit the hard as most of the oil and gas exiting the strait is transported there. Government offices in the Philippines are now open only four days a week and there are directives to limit the use of air conditioning. Vietnam has urged people to work from home.
And it’s not just oil and gas. Key raw materials - like helium used in making computer chips and sulfur, a raw material in fertilizer - have been obstructed and could be in short supply soon, raising the prices of goods all the way down the supply chain.
Here are key refineries, terminals and other infrastructure that has been targeted.
South Pars is the world's largest natural gas field and is split between Iran and Qatar. The portion controlled by Qatar is called North Field. South Pars supplies the bulk of natural gas used to heat homes and generate electricity in Iran.
An Israeli strike at facilities connected to the field at Asuleyah led to Iranian threats to attack oil and gas sites in other Gulf countries.
Iran already struggles at times to produce enough electricity. The loss of natural gas from South Pars would make life worse for the civilian population.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that Israel would not attack South Pars again, but warned on social media that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the U.S. would retaliate and “massively blow up the entirety” of the field.
The largest LNG export facility in the world suffered “extensive” damage when it was attacked Thursday by Iran in retaliation for the South Pars attack. It had already been shut down by state-owned QatarEnergy following a drone strike.
Ras Laffan draws gas from the Qatari side of the shared field with Iran - called the North Field. The gas is chilled until it condenses into a liquid and then transferred to tankers for transport, mostly to Asia.
The attack has dealt a severe shock to global energy markets because Qatar produces 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas. Europe is already feeling the pinch from sharply higher prices.
This is a tanker terminal that has handled almost all of Iran’s roughly 1.6 million barrels per day of prewar crude exports, most of it going to China. Trump said the U.S. bombed military sites on Kharg Island on March 13 but spared its oil infrastructure. He threatened that the island's oil infrastructure could be next.
Some tankers have continued to load there. At least some Iranian oil appears to be leaving the Gulf through a “dark fleet" of tankers that use false location signals and obscure ownership to evade sanctions, according to shipping intelligence companies.
Saudi Aramco's pipeline from the Abqaiq oil processing center near the Persian Gulf to the Yanbu port on the Red Sea circumvents the Hormuz chokepoint and has allowed Saudi Arabia to continue exporting a substantial portion of its oil. However, the pipeline lacks capacity to fully make up for the Hormuz closure. Saudi Arabia said its SAMREF refinery at Yanbu was hit, raising concerns about the ability to export oil through the port there.
A key terminal for oil tankers on the Gulf of Oman, it enables Abu Dhabi to export a significant share of its oil using a pipeline from the Habshan oil and gas field without sending it through the Strait of Hormuz. It has been disrupted by two strikes but has reportedly resumed operations.
Following a drone attack, fires at the facilities were extinguished Thursday, said the Kuwait Petroleum company, without specifying the extent of the damage. Refineries are key to Kuwait's oil production because without them, oil wells would have to be shut down for lack of a destination for the oil. Restarting refineries is extremely time consuming for safety reasons and those wells would remain largely inactive until refineries are back on line.
Salalah is the site of an $800 million facility that produces liquid petroleum gas for export to Asia, where it is commonly used for cooking fuel. Restaurants in India have begun shortening hours of operation and many have dropped energy intensive dishes like curries and deep-fried foods from the menu. It's located outside the Strait of Hormuz and operations were suspended as a precaution after drone strikes.
The site supplies about 20% of Abu Dhabi's natural gas. It's also a major supplier of sulfur extracted from gas, a raw material used to make fertilizer and in chemical production. Operations were suspended Tuesday due to a drone strike.
