Iranian aerial attacks have caused extensive damage to the world’s largest gas plant in Qatar, targeted a refinery in Saudi Arabia, forced the UAE to shut gas facilities and set off fires at two Kuwaiti refineries.
Tehran’s retaliation against Israeli attacks on its own gas facilities marks a further escalation of the nearly three-week war.
On Thursday, a drone fell on the Aramco-Exxon refinery, SAMREF, the Saudi defence ministry said, adding damage was being assessed. It also intercepted a ballistic missile launched towards Yanbu, the port city that is currently Saudi Arabia’s only outlet for crude exports and where the refinery is located.
Also on Thursday, one of the operational units at Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah refineries was targeted by drones, resulting in fires at both sites, Kuwait’s state news agency said.
Qatar’s state oil giant ?QatarEnergy said on Wednesday that Iranian missile attacks on Ras Laffan, the site of the country’s core LNG processing operations, caused “extensive damage”.
QatarEnergy, the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, said in a statement that its emergency response team was deployed immediately to contain fires caused by the attack. By early Thursday, all fires at Ras Laffan had been brought under control, with no injuries reported, Qatar’s interior ministry said.
“We are currently assessing any potential impact on any asset operated or utilised by Shell in Ras Laffan Industrial City and will provide further information in due course,” a Shell spokesperson said.
QatarEnergy said the Pearl gas-to-liquids facility had suffered extensive damage. Several LNG facilities were hit by missile attacks in the early hours of Thursday, causing “sizeable fires” and further damage, it said.
Shell later said the Pearl GTL facility had sustained damage, saying a fire was quickly put out and it was now in a safe state and that damage was being assessed in close coordination with authorities and QatarEnergy.
In a statement ?on social media, Trump warned Iran not to attack Qatari LNG facilities again and threatened to “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field” if it did so. He said Israel had attacked South Pars without informing Qatar or the United States.
Qatar’s foreign ministry told Iran’s security and military attaches to leave the country within 24 hours and declared them “persona non grata”.
In a statement, the ministry condemned the attack on Ras Laffan ?as a “direct threat” to Qatar’s national security and accused Iran of taking an “irresponsible approach.”
In the UAE, authorities said they were responding to incidents at the Habshan gas ?facilities and at the Bab oil field caused by falling debris from intercepted missiles.
The gas facilities were shut down and no injuries were reported, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.
The Habshan complex, operated by Abu Dhabi state oil giant ADNOC, is one of the world’s largest gas processing facilities, comprising five plants with a total capacity of 6.1 billion standard cubic feet per day (bscfd), according to ADNOC.
The US-Israel war on Iran poses a dire threat to global food security, the World Trade Organization chief warns, appealing for international supply chains to remain open.
The Middle East conflict “threatens global food security since shipping disruptions and higher energy costs reduce the supply and raise the cost of fertiliser”, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters in Geneva. About one-third of the world’s supply of nitrogen fertiliser passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
“A prolonged interruption in supply could ripple through food systems, prompting farmers to reduce their use of fertilisers and plant less input-intensive crops,” said Okonjo-Iweala. She stressed that it is “essential to keep global food trade channels open and predictable, allowing food supplies to flow to where they are most needed”.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday there was no “time frame” for ending the US-Israeli war against Iran, which was launched three weeks ago. “We wouldn’t want to set a definitive time frame,” Hegseth told a news conference, adding that “we’re very much on track” and that President Donald Trump will be the one to decide when to stop.
“It will be at the president’s choosing, ultimately, where we say, ‘Hey, we’ve achieved what we need to.