Iran War Live Updates: Oil and Gas Prices Jump After Strike Hits Key Energy Site
"The attack on South Pars, one of the world’s biggest gas fields, showed how the war threatens global energy supplies. Israel killed Iran’s intelligence minister, the latest high-ranking official to be targeted.
Iran said on Wednesday that airstrikes had hit the infrastructure of the vast South Pars offshore gas field, the largest attack on Iran’s energy production since the war began nearly three weeks ago, which could worsen the country’s already severe domestic energy shortages.
An Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, on Wednesday, continuing Israel’s systematic targeting of high-ranking officials that has decimated the upper ranks of the government in Tehran. The Israeli military said in a statement that Mr. Khatib’s ministry had overseen espionage and covert operations against Iranians as well as Israeli and American targets across the world.
Oil and natural gas prices spiked following reports of the South Pars strikes, which hit petrochemical facilities in the southern city of Asaluyeh, Iran said. Those facilities process gas from the South Pars field, which lies under the Persian Gulf. The global benchmark crude oil approached $110 a barrel.
Most of the energy Iran takes from South Pars is used domestically, so any significant disruption would intensify the strain that the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign is putting on Iran’s economy and daily life in the country. Natural gas is the fuel used to generate electricity, and for household heat, hot water and cooking for most Iranians.
Iranian media reported fires at several facilities at Asaluyeh, which they said had been contained by the evening.
Qatar, which shares the expansive offshore field with Iran, blamed Israel for the strikes and warned that targeting joint energy infrastructure was a “dangerous and irresponsible step” that could put global energy security at risk. Israel previously struck the South Pars field during its war with Iran last year.
The killing of Mr. Khatib, the intelligence chief, came a day after an Israeli strike killed the head of Iran’s National Security Council and the country’s de facto leader, Ali Larijani, whose funeral on Wednesday drew large crowds in Tehran. State media showed his coffin draped in the Iranian flag and surrounded by mourners who chanted, “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.”
Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli military intensified its attacks on Lebanon with strikes in Beirut and other major cities, towns and villages, after Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into Israel overnight. Several Israeli strikes hit central Beirut, away from Hezbollah’s stronghold south of the capital — adding to fears that areas of the capital once considered safe are in danger.
Israel’s strikes came at times without warning. An unannounced Israeli attack on the central Zuqaq al-Blat and Basta areas of Beirut early Wednesday killed at least 10 people and injured 27 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Another building in Zuqaq al-Blat was struck later without a warning, igniting a fire on its upper floors.
Here’s what else we are covering:
Iranian strikes: In retaliation for the killings of Mr. Larijani and the commander of Iran’s powerful Basij militia, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Wednesday that it had struck Israel. Two people were killed by missile fire in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv, and at least one person was injured by shrapnel, Israel’s emergency service said.
Death toll: At least 1,348 civilians in Iran have been killed since the start of the war on Feb. 28, Iran’s U.N. representative has told the Security Council. In Lebanon, health officials said more than 900 have been killed. In Israel, at least 14 people have been killed, the authorities said. The Pentagon says that 13 American service members have died since the start of the war.
Intelligence chiefs: In a hearing on Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, lawmakers began questioning intelligence leaders about the Trump administration’s threat assessments ahead of the U.S.-Israeli war. Early questions also focused on how quickly Iran would be able to develop ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States. The resignation on Tuesday of a top U.S. counterterrorism official, who said that Iran did not “pose an imminent threat” to the country, will most likely be a focus of the hearing.
Trump’s comments: President Trump lashed out again on Tuesday at NATO allies who had rebuffed his requests for help opening the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane that has been all but closed because of Iranian attacks, sending oil prices surging. He also said that he was not afraid to put U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.
South Pars is a cornerstone of Iran’s energy sector and a major part of its economy, supplying much of the country’s natural gas for industry, electricity, and households. Any strike on the facility would disrupt production, with potential knock-on effects for exports, government revenue, and overall economic stability. It is important to note that Iran has faced recurring gas and electricity shortages for years—especially during winter—driven largely by mismanagement, aging infrastructure and rising demand.
Iranians gathered in for the funeral of Ali Larijani, one of Iran’s most powerful leaders, who was killed by an Israeli strike.
Major developments — March 18
Iran and Qatar accused Israel on Wednesday of attacking a giant offshore natural gas field that the two countries share, sending the prices of oil and natural gas soaring on what would be a sharp escalation of strikes on energy infrastructure in the war against Iran.
Iran’s oil ministry said on social media that airstrikes had damaged a number of its facilities connected to the South Pars gas field. It appeared to be the most significant energy site to be hit since the U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran began nearly three weeks ago.
Iranian state media reported that oil and petrochemical facilities in the southern city of Asaluyeh, a key hub for the country’s energy industry, were also hit by an airstrike.
The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, and Iranian state media reported that fires at the energy facilities had been brought under control. But the strikes illustrated how the war has threatened oil and gas production facilities.
The South Pars field accounts for about 70 to 75 percent of Iran’s natural gas production, which is almost entirely for domestic use, partly because Western economic sanctions constrain its ability to trade internationally. But the reports of the attack caused the price of Brent Crude, the international oil benchmark, to surge more than 6 percent to over $109 a barrel. The price of natural gas also rose by about 6 percent.
Price of Brent Crude Oil
Qatar condemned the attacks. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, accused Israel of taking a “dangerous and irresponsible step,” and warned that targeting shared energy infrastructure could threaten global energy security.
Israel did not immediately comment on the reports.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency quoted the governor of Asaluyeh as saying that attacks on South Pars gas facilities “caused fires in several refinery units.” He said the fires were contained and “the situation in the area is now fully under control,” Tasnim reported.
South Pars makes up about a third of the world’s largest natural gas reserve, which stretches from Qatar toward Iran and contains enough to supply the world’s needs for about 13 years, according to Reuters. Qatar’s facilities there did not appear to have been targeted on Wednesday.
Qatar, which calls its fields in the reservoir the North Dome, is the world’s third-largest natural gas exporter and has made hundreds of billions of dollars from the industry over decades. Many of its installations in reservoir are joint ventures with Western energy companies, including U.S. giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Iran on Wednesday threatened to retaliate by attacking the energy infrastructure of the U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, state media reported. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warned people in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which hosts a sprawling U.S. military base, to stay away from major oil and gas facilities.
Israel last attacked parts of the Iranian section of South Pars, about 200 miles from Qatar’s installations, during in its 12-day war with Iran last year.
Parin Behrooz contributed reporting.
Israel’s attack on Iran’s gas production plants on Wednesday was likely to have a direct impact on ordinary Iranians. Natural gas is the fuel used for heat, hot water and cooking by most Iranians, and the government has linked even small, remote villages to gas pipelines.
The front of the apartment was blown away, the walls pockmarked from shrapnel. A metal walker lay in the rubble.
This was the scene on Wednesday, hours after a missile from Iran killed an older couple near Tel Aviv, video footage from their apartment building showed.
A series of phone alerts and sirens blared across a broad swath of central Israel in the early hours of Wednesday morning to warning of incoming fire, followed by a quick succession of booms.
Millions of Israelis headed for bomb shelters or fortified safe rooms.
The couple, Yaron and Ilana Moshe, were found in their living room on the top floor of their apartment building in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
Neighbors told Israeli news media that the building was hit soon after a siren sounded. Mr. Moshe was disabled, they said. A local police chief said it seemed that the couple had not made it into the safe room in their apartment.
The explosion was caused by a cluster bomb, a small rocket or grenade-like munition from a missile warhead that breaks apart in the air, according to Israeli military officials and emergency workers at the scene.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that it had launched a large ballistic missile attack on Wednesday on Tel Aviv in retaliation for the killing of Ali Larijani, the head of the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israeli military who visited the Ramat Gan site on Wednesday, said the circumstances of the couple’s deaths were still under investigation.
Israel’s air defenses have intercepted most of the hundreds of ballistic missiles fired at it from Iran since the United States and Israel began the war on Feb. 28.
But even after an interception, Colonel Shoshani said, a cluster warhead can disperse dozens of small rockets over an area of several miles. “It can cover a city with small bombs,” he said. Each one can carry up to 11 pounds of explosives.
“Iran’s use of cluster munitions against densely populated civilian areas in Israel constitutes a violation of international law and is being done in order to maximize harm to civilians,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The video showed a hole in the ceiling, indicating that a rocket had penetrated the roof of the apartment block.
Ramat Gan wasn’t alone. Israel’s emergency rescue service, Magen David Adom, said that cluster bombs caused extensive damage in and around Tel Aviv, including at a train station in the center of the city and in the nearby city of Bnei Brak, where one man was hurt by shrapnel.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, visited the impact site in Ramat Gan later Wednesday. “Innocent people were murdered last night by a vicious ballistic missile from Iran — a cluster missile,” he said.
Soon after Mr. Herzog left, sirens wailed across central Israel again. The police said officers and bomb disposal units were working to isolate and secure impact sites where munition fragments had fallen in the Tel Aviv area. A man and two children were lightly injured, according to Israel’s ambulance service.
Israeli authorities rarely disclose damage to important infrastructure during wartime. But on Wednesday, officials said a major railway station and Ben-Gurion Airport, the country’s main international hub, were hit during recent missile strikes. A fragment from Tuesday night’s barrage damaged Tel Aviv’s Savidor Central railway station, suspending train service nationwide for several hours, a railway spokesman said. At Ben-Gurion Airport, three private passenger planes were damaged by falling fragments in recent days, an airport spokeswoman said.
John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, said at a Senate hearing that the Iran war would take four to six weeks and would come at some cost, as President Trump seeks to “address a 47-year problem.” He said Iran was a destabilizing force in the Middle East “one that has frankly been watered, fed and nurtured by policies of prior administrations that have allowed them to become the threat that they are.”
Asked if it were true Iran could have a missile that could threaten the United States within six months, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, did not give Senators a timeline for when Iran might develop such a weapon. Still, he said there was good reason to be concerned about Iran’s missile program because the Tehran was “gaining experience” in longer range missiles. “It’s one of the reasons why degrading Iran’s missile production capabilities that is taking place right now in Operation Epic Fury is so important to our national security,” he said.
C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe, speaking at a Senate hearing, took issue with remarks by Joe Kent, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, who said Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States before the current strikes on the country. “I think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time and posed an immediate threat at this time,” Ratcliffe said.
Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee pressed the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on various assessments spy agencies had made before the war about the threat from Iran should the U.S. attack, attempting to get her to contradict President Trump’s comments. Gabbard, however, avoided answering the questions with any specificity, asserting only that the intelligence agencies were continuing to assess the situation.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence who was testifying on Wednesday before the Senate, said Iran’s ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile was not fully mature, though the country could build a viable one before 2035 should its government “attempt to pursue that capability.” Gabbard’s remarks repeated an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency Assessment, but she noted that assessment would need to be updated after the extent of the damage from U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran’s missile infrastructure was made clear.
Central Israel came under missile fire again on Wednesday afternoon, after the Israeli military said it had detected launches from Iran. At least one missile appeared to get through air defenses, while several fragments also fell, according to Israeli authorities. Search and rescue forces have been dispatched to at least one impact site, the military said. A total of three people were known to have been injured, all lightly, according to Israel’s emergency service, Magen David Adom.
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran confirmed in a post on X that the country’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, had been killed, as Israel claimed earlier in the day. He said the “cowardly assassination” of Khatib, along with other senior officials killed in recent days, had left the country in mourning."
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