OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/DUBAI: Iran has partially suspended gas production at the world’s biggest gas field after an Israeli strike caused a fire there on Saturday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, in what would be the first Israeli strike on Iran’s oil and gas sector.
Iran shares the South Pars gas field with Qatar.
Striking it would mark a major escalation in the conflict, which had already pushed oil prices up 9% on Friday even though Israel spared Iran’s oil and gas on the first day of its attacks.
Israel launched an air offensive against Iran on Friday, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop Tehran building an atomic weapon.
The South Pars field is located offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province and is responsible for the lion’s share of gas production in Iran, the world’s third largest gas producer after the United States and Russia.
The strike caused a fire, which has been extinguished, the Iranian oil ministry said. The fire broke out in one of the four units of Phase 14 of South Pars, halting production of 12 million cubic metres of gas, Tasnim said.
Iran produces around 275 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year or some 6.5% of global gas output, and consumes it domestically as it cannot export gas due to sanctions.
Iran shares the field with Qatar, which calls the field North Field. Qatar produces 77 million tonnes of liquefied gas from the field with the help of global majors such as Exxon and Shell and supplies the gas to Europe and Asia.
Separately, the Israeli military said it struck an underground facility Saturday in western Iran’s Khorramabad that contained surface-to-surface and cruise missiles.
“This is an important site that was even featured in a propaganda video by the Iranian regime in the past,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told journalists.
He was likely referring to footage aired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards earlier this year showing what it described as a new underground missile facility.
“It was struck and the senior officials associated with it have also been eliminated,” Defrin said, adding that “dozens of other such sites have also been destroyed”.
The military said the site contained “storage tunnels for surface-to-surface missiles and cruise missiles as well as multiple launch shafts”.
Iranian media reported strikes on Lorestan province, where Khorramabad is located, on Saturday.
Earlier on Saturday Israel said its air strikes on Iran, which began in the early hours of Friday, have so far killed more than 20 Iranian army and Revolutionary Guards commanders, including armed forces chief Mohammad Bagheri. The strikes have also killed nine nuclear scientists and experts, the military said.
Iran said at least 78 people have been killed.
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