DOHA, Qatar — Israel struck an installation at Iran’s South Pars gas field on Saturday, the first attack on Iran’s oil and gas sector as part of what the Israeli government had warned would be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon.
Iran has partially suspended gas production from the South Pars field, Iran’s portion of the world’s largest natural gas reserve, which lies beneath the Gulf and is shared with major gas exporter Qatar.
Israel also struck a Tehran fuel depot and an oil refinery near the capital on Saturday, Iran said, but authorities said the situation was under control.
Israel has said the strikes on energy infrastructure were a response to Iranian missile barrages targeting civilian areas in the Jewish state.
Iran, the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, extracts about 3.3 million barrels per day of crude oil, and another 1.3 million bpd of condensate and other liquids, totaling about 4.5% of global supplies.
The country also produces 34 billion cubic feet of gas per day, according to FGE, accounting for 7% of global production.
Sanctions and technical constraints have meant that almost all the gas Tehran produces from the South Pars field is for domestic use in Iran.
The country’s total natural gas production totaled 266.25 billion cubic meters in 2023, with domestic consumption accounting for 255.5 bcm, according to data by the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a grouping of gas exporter nations. Only about 15.8 bcm of natural gas were exported, the Forum said.
A natural gas refinery is visible at the South Pars gas field on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, in Asaluyeh, Iran, March 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
Iran’s hydrocarbon production facilities are primarily concentrated in the southwest, in the Khuzestan province for oil and in the Bushehr province for gas and condensate from the giant South Pars field. It exports 90% of its crude via Kharg Island.
Saturday’s attack struck four units of Phase 14 of South Pars. They were located about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Qatar’s gas installations, many of which are joint ventures with major international energy firms, including US giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Doha has made hundreds of billions of dollars exporting liquefied natural gas to global markets for nearly three decades.
The entire reservoir contains an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet of usable gas – enough to supply the entire world’s needs for 13 years, or to generate enough electricity to supply the US for more than 35 years.
2018 sanctions drove exports near zero
Iran’s oil production was at its peak in the 1970s, with record output of 6 million bpd in 1974, according to OPEC data. That amounted to more than 10% of world output at the time.
In 1979, the US imposed the first wave of sanctions on Tehran. Since then, the country has been the target of several waves of US and European Union sanctions.
The US tightened sanctions in 2018 after Donald Trump, then in his first term as US president, exited a nuclear accord. Iran’s oil exports fell to nearly zero for some months.
US President Donald Trump signs an executive order “reimposing maximum pressure on Iran” in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, DC, February 4, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
Exports rose steadily under Trump’s successor, Joe Biden’s administration, with analysts saying sanctions were less rigorously enforced and Iran had succeeded in evading them.
China drove exports back to multi-year high
In recent months, Iran’s crude exports have risen to a multi-year high of 1.8 million bpd, the highest since 2018, driven by strong Chinese demand.
China says it does not recognize sanctions against its trade partners. The main buyers of Iranian oil are Chinese private refiners, some of whom have recently been placed on the US Treasury sanctions list. There is little evidence, however, that this has impacted flows from Iran to China significantly.
Iran has for years evaded sanctions through ship-to-ship transfers and hiding ships’ satellite positions.
Iran is exempt from OPEC+ output restrictions.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members could compensate for the drop in Iranian supply by using their spare capacity to pump more. However, with a number of producers in the group currently in the process of raising output targets, their spare capacity is becoming more strained.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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