US President Donald Trump. Photo / Getty Images
Today looms as a significant stage of the Iran war as Tehran faces a deadline by President Donald Trump to open up the crucial Strait of Hormuz or face a major United States assault on power plants.
Trump said he would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants starting “with the biggest one first”.
Iran has dismissed that ultimatum and vowed to target energy facilities in countries hosting US troops and desalination plants if the attack is carried out.
Here’s what could happen if the escalation occurs, with the war in its fourth week.
Destroying the Middle East’s biggest oil factories could cripple the Gulf and trigger an even worse global energy crisis.
As well as striking oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, Iran could target desalination plants that supply millions of people in the Middle East with drinking water.
The threat of tit-for-tat military responses from Iran and the US has also placed a “ticking time bomb” under the global market, analysts have warned.
Although the US and Israel have targeted Iran’s missile capabilities heavily, Tehran is still believed to have the weapons in its arsenal to cause damage in the Middle East and beyond.
Before the war, Iran was considered to have the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with anything from 2000 to 10,000 ballistic and cruise missiles.
For strikes in the Gulf, Iran could use its short-range missiles, which typically have ranges of less than 965km and are designed to hit regional targets.
Potential energy sites now in Tehran’s crosshairs include the UAE’s Ruwais refinery in Abu Dhabi. The facility is the Middle East’s largest single-site refinery, producing as many as 922,000 barrels of oil a day.
Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq processing plant, the world’s largest crude oil stabilisation facility, supplies as many as seven million barrels a day.
It could also be hit, as could the Samref refinery, which turns 402,000 barrels of oil a day into products such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel.
In a previous retaliatory strike, Iran hit Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City complex, the country’s main liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, resulting in “significant damage”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week.
Ras Laffan processes and exports 20% of the global LNG supply, and missile strikes have removed 17% of its LNG capacity – equal to 3.5% of the global supply.
Qatar’s Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, which turns gas and oil into chemicals including plastic ingredient polyethylene, could also be bombarded.
Analysts at the Wall Street bank Citi have warned that oil could hit US$200 a barrel if Tehran conducts “broad energy infrastructure attacks”. That would surpass the record high of US$147 a barrel, reached in 2008.
Surging oil prices would hammer growth and drive up inflation. Motorists would feel more pain first..
Natural gas has already doubled in price since the crisis began and would be driven higher still if key LNG facilities in the Gulf were destroyed.
The Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of the world’s oil, has been closed for weeks, causing global energy prices to soar.
Attacks against desalination plants could cripple the Middle East, among the driest regions in the world, with water availability about 10 times lower than the global average, according to the World Bank.
There are more than 400 plants along the Gulf coast. About 42% of the world’s desalination capacity is based in the Middle East, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
Desalinated water is 42% of drinking water in the UAE, 70% in Saudi Arabia, 86% in Oman and 90% in Kuwait, according to a 2022 report from the French Institute of International Relations think tank.
“Over there, without desalinated water there, there is nothing,” said Esther Crauser-Delbourg, a water economist, with any strike on such facilities having the potential to trigger a major humanitarian crisis.
Countries in the Middle East, which host US military bases, have faced missile and drone attacks from Iran. To stop these weapons, the Gulf kingdoms have been using layered air defences.
That has included combat air patrols by aircraft such as Typhoon Eurofighters and Dassault Rafale jets to shoot down drones with air-to-air missiles.
Apache helicopter gunships have also been dispatched to track low-flying drones then shoot them down with their 30mm chain guns. They are also using costly Patriot or Terminal High Altitude Area Defence batteries to shoot down incoming missiles.
Gulf kingdoms have also asked Ukraine for access to its interceptor drones.
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, said Donald Trump, the US President, was leaving “all options on the table” in the war in the Middle East, which included bombing Iran’s energy hubs.
“Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate,” he told NBC News. “This is the only language the Iranians understand.”
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