Name: What the attacks on oil & gas facilites in the Middle East mean for global energy security | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-03-20T17:17:45.000Z
Duration: 18 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

US President Donald Trump has warned Iran not to launch any further attacks on gas facilities in Qatar after Tehran launched multiple strikes on infrastructure in the country.

Participle clauses

Iran targeted the Ras Lafan liquefied natural gas hub on Wednesday evening, causing extensive damage.

It's the world's largest complex of its kind.

It processes gas from Qatar's north field in the Persian Gulf.

Tehran says the strikes were in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran's South Pars facilities earlier in the day.

Iran is heavily dependent on gas and uses it to generate about 80% of the country's electricity.

President Trump said neither the US nor Qatar knew anything about the attack there on the South Paris field, adding that Israel had acted out of anger.

In a statement online, he stressed that it would not happen again.

No more attacks will be made by Israel, he wrote, pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars field, unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar, in which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars gas field.

defense Secretary Pete Tetzith told reporters that Iran is following a pattern of exploiting energy supplies, but

that it may want to reconsider this strategy.

We have allies pursuing objectives as well.

I mean, President Trump was very clear about that.

Israel clearly sent a warning and POTUS has made it clear, very clear.

Iran knows when you hit Carg island and you hit military capabilities on Carg island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue, anything.

The United States military controls the fate of that country.

Iran has the ability to make the right choices.

It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves.

Christoph Rule, he's an economist specializing in macroeconomics and energy economics.

I just want to get your reaction to what we've been hearing in the last hour.

The Israeli prime Minister making it clear that the US President had nothing to do with these attacks.

I mean, obviously there's the diplomatic part of this, but there's also.

There has to be an attempt here to settle the nerves of a jittery global energy market.

And I think what matters here is not so much whether Israel did it without the US's knowledge, which is probably hard to believe, whether they did it out of fury and without thinking, which is even harder to believe, or whether they are all now backpedaling trying to get Trump out of the line of fire, as your correspondent has said, what really matters here is the reaction of Iran.

Number one, that they are willing to escalate this a step further.

And number two, that they do have the capacity, despite what the American defense minister just said, still have the capacity to target precisely not only energy in general or the Gulf neighbors in general, but

precisely a particular field, precisely the industrial city which the gas is produced precisely where it hurts.

And this looks to energy markets as a strategy which can escalate even further.

And every day which passes by, it becomes harder and harder for the Trumps and Netanyahu on the other side to de escalate and to get their way out, if that's what they want.

When you consider that crude prices shot up yet again today and you see what's happening tonight, what we're hearing from the White House as well as from the Israeli prime minister, it looks like these leaders saw a situation that was about to get out of control and they've tried to pull us back from the brink of a global energy catastrophe.

Clearly it is inconceivable to me as an energy economist and I think to every single one of my peers globally, how you could start a war against Iran without having a plan against eventualities such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz or attacks on the Gulf countries.

Because not only has Iran indicated all along that they would use these levers, everybody in the US and in the west in general, in military and economic and in energy circles has warned of that and as for 40 years now, said be careful.

There is this choke point which we need to watch out for.

And then to go and start it without Plan B is the first surprise.

But to to your question, it becomes more difficult for Mr. Trump and Mr.

Netanyahu sort of step out of there on the one side and it becomes clearer.

There's a strategy of asymmetric warfare on part of the Iran is bearing fruit.

They don't seem to have only isolated groups shooting blind rockets.

And as somebody said, you can paralyze a place like Dubai with a rocket per month.

You don't need to have the same kind of follow.

It's an example of asymmetric warfare and it seems to be working.

And considering the volatility that we've seen in this region just the amount of violence and the attacks.

Are you surprised that we haven't seen oil prices in particular shoot up even more?

I mean, it almost seems on the outside that the markets are rather restrained and in their worried reactions it seems like that.

What happens here is that markets are more worried about things which may yet come than about the current disruptions.

Oil markets, for example, have been extremely well supplied.

And even a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.

As long as Saudi Arabia can use this pipeline, they have to ship parts of that at least through the Red Sea.

Not quite the 20% which is always mentioned in price, it's a little less.

And inventories in China, in Europe, in the US everywhere are very, very well supplied.

So markets could take that hit without massive price spikes.

And that you see these attempts for prices to go higher and higher as always that there seems to be always another round which nobody seems thought was conceivable.

Like now the attack on the parts field to come and then who knows what's next that would worry markets.

the part which is controlled by Iran serves, as you have mentioned, Iran's domestic economy.

So by blowing that up, that's one of the dilemmas the Americans have.

They would make it impossible for Iran, should there ever be a regime change, to run their economy in a half a sensible way for the next few years because they had no power and no gas.

And for Qatar and for the rest of the world, this field produces exactly the liquefied natural gas which has saved Europe.

When Russia attacked Ukraine in the pipeline was interrupted.

So it's also something you don't want to lose.

And that's where this caution comes from which we are observing now.

Christophe Ruhl, as always, Mr. Rule, we appreciate your time and your valuable insights tonight.

Well, I'm joined now by Benjamin Schmidt.

He's a senior fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the center for European Policy Analysis.

I mean, each side in this war has now attacked oil related infrastructure.

How worried are you about oil production being maintained in the Gulf region?

Well, look, Brent, it's not time to be worried.

We're just going to have to keep up with this as we go.

I'm looking at the laundry list of Iranian strikes against Arabic, both natural gas and oil facilities, you have the Qatar facility, one of the largest in the world for producing LNG, which of course the EU imports roughly 12% so far this year.

Iran also targeted oil facilities in Kuwait's Mina Al Abadi and Mina Abdullah refineries.

Aramco reports the refinery was hit in Saudi Arabia.

And the UAE has intercepted some, some incoming missiles and ordinance aimed at its oil production capabilities.

I mean, if we're talking about energy security threats, which of course, you and I have talked about many times over the years, this is again, just like Russia's open attacks on civil energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

This is the apex of energy security threats around the world.

And what has been attacked is not just any place.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

What the attacks on oil & gas facilites in the Middle East mean for global energy security | DW News

strategy

multiple

scale

infrastructure