I have stood on the steel grating of the Assaluyeh processing facility, 105 kilometres of subsea pipeline behind me and the Persian Gulf horizon ahead. For two years I worked there as a quality control inspector for Hyundai Engineering & Construction, the principal contractor to Agip ENI on Phases 4 and 5 of the South Pars gas field — the largest natural gas reservoir on earth. On the morning of March 18, 2026, Israeli aircraft struck that facility. I did not need a news alert to understand what that meant. I had held the piping specs in my hands.
What happened is not simply another escalation in the Iran conflict. It is the opening of a new and categorically different kind of war. I am calling it the Gas War. And the world is already paying the price.
Within 24 hours of the South Pars strike, Iran fired ballistic missiles at Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City — the single largest LNG export complex on earth. QatarEnergy reported 'extensive damage.' The Gas War had formally begun.
The field I knew
The Phase 4 and 5 development — where I spent two years until project completion — was a $2 billion investment, with Hyundai holding a $1.6 billion construction contract, the largest single overseas plant contract ever awarded to a Korean builder at that time. Two offshore wellhead platforms in 65 metres of water, two 32-inch subsea sealines each stretching 100 kilometres to shore, and the onshore processing trains at Assaluyeh where raw sour gas was sweetened, condensate separated, LPG fractionated, and treated gas fed into Iran's national grid. Peak workforce on site: over 18,300 people in a single day. I was one of them.
South Pars is not simply a large gas field. Together with Qatar's North Field — the same geological formation, divided only by a maritime boundary — it holds an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Iran's share alone represents 36 percent of its proven gas reserves. Qatar has invested over $100 billion in its side of the same reservoir, and that gas accounts for 80 percent of Qatari government revenues. When you strike South Pars, you are not striking a military installation. You are striking the economic foundation of two nations — and the heating supply of 85 million Iranians.
A world in Outrage, danger
The international reaction has been immediate and furious, and it tells you everything about how serious this threshold crossing is. Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Dr. Majed Al-Ansari called the Israeli strike a “dangerous and irresponsible step,” warning that targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security. Within hours, Doha declared Iranian diplomatic staff persona non grata and ordered them out of the country — because Iran had fired back at Ras Laffan, the crown jewel of Qatar's gas empire, causing extensive damage and fires at the site.
France's President Emmanuel Macron called both US President Donald Trump and the Qatari emir before going public, urging an immediate 'moratorium on strikes targeting civilian infrastructure, particularly energy and water supply facilities.' Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul warned the world could be headed toward a 'crisis of the gravest order' if supply chain disruptions continued. Saudi Arabia intercepted four Iranian ballistic missiles aimed at Riyadh and reported an attempted drone attack on a gas facility in its eastern province. The UAE called the attack a 'dangerous escalation.' Russia condemned the strikes near the Bushehr nuclear plant. Iraq reported an immediate halt to Iranian gas supplies crossing its border.
And then came President Trump. In a Truth Social post late Wednesday, he denied US involvement in the South Pars strike — directly contradicting a Wall Street Journal report citing US officials who said he had approved it in advance. Then he issued a threat that would have been unthinkable a month ago: if Iran continued targeting Qatar's energy facilities, the United States would, in his words, massively blow up the entirety of South Pars Gas Field. The field I worked on for two years.
Iran's IRGC has now published an updated target list: Saudi Arabia's Jubail Petrochemical Complex, the UAE's Al Hosn Gas Field, Qatar's Mesaieed Complex, and Ras Laffan Refinery. The Gulf energy map is now a battlefield.
Why is this different?
We have seen oil wars. The tanker war of the 1980s. Kuwait's burning fields. Targeted strikes on Syrian and Libyan infrastructure. Oil is fungible — it can be rerouted, stored, replaced with alternative supply. Gas is different. South Pars gas flows through Assaluyeh and directly into Iran's national distribution grid. There is no rerouting. There is no LNG terminal to redirect product to Asian buyers. Damage to a processing train at Assaluyeh is not a temporary disruption. It is structural removal of productive capacity for years. A 32-inch subsea pipeline that ruptures catastrophically does not get repaired in a ceasefire week.
Assaluyeh is the singular node through which all of South Pars flows onshore. I know this not as analysis but as lived experience — I inspected that infrastructure. The field cannot function without it. And now the IRGC has declared that all Gulf energy infrastructure associated with the United States is, in its words, 'on par with American bases and will come under fire with full force.'
The men who built Phases 4 and 5 — Koreans, Italians, Iranians — built it to power a civilization for generations. The missile that hit it this week was not aimed at a military target. It was aimed at the energy architecture of the modern world. We are no longer at the edge of the Gas War. We are inside it. And unlike every conflict that preceded it, this one has no obvious ceiling.
Omar Ahmed is editor-in-chief of Rudaw’s Economy Desk.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.