By Summer Said, Georgi Kantchev and Benoit Faucon

Iran's paralyzation of tanker traffic through a key waterway and drone attacks on critical energy facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatari have brought the Mideast conflict to the energy industry, raising the risk of disruption to energy supplies and the global economy.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz -- a critical chokepoint that handles roughly a fifth of global oil consumption -- has ground to a near-halt as a result of the fighting. The attack on Saudi Arabia early Monday caused a fire and forced state oil company Saudi Aramco to halt operations at a refinery in the Ras Tanura oil complex, which houses a large offshore oil-export facility.

Qatar, meanwhile, said it halted production of liquefied natural gas after it intercepted two Iranian drones targeting an energy facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The area houses a major LNG hub for Qatar, one of the world's top biggest exporters of the fuel.

The attacks mark a dangerous inflection point in the conflict. Having previously exercised strict restraint to prevent a broader war -- including denying its airspace to U.S. warplanes -- Saudi Arabia is now pushed closer to direct military retaliation against Tehran after this threat to its economic core.

The attack adds to global oil supply jitters. Brent crude futures jumped by over 8% in Monday trading, a price surge that if sustained could boost inflation and put more pressure on consumers already stressed by high prices. Natural-gas prices in Europe, a big customer of Qatari LNG, shot up by around 40%.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had set attacks on the kingdom's oil facilities as a red line, Saudi officials said. The attack on the kingdom's energy facilities comes against the backdrop of growing Saudi budgetary pressures and threatens to set back the crown prince's multitrillion-dollar plan for investments to diversify the economy away from oil.

It isn't clear whether Saudi Arabia would directly retaliate against Tehran. Some in the crown prince's inner circles believe the kingdom should maintain a policy of neutrality, officials said. The kingdom hasn't decided whether to lift its restrictions on the U.S. using its airspace for attacks on Iran.

"Iran is deliberately targeting the Gulf states' economic centers of gravity, the foundations of their prosperity, and this could become increasingly existential," said Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London. "Saudi Arabia therefore needs to re-establish a credible level of deterrence to reduce the risk of further strikes against its oil facilities."

The Saudi government said it intercepted and destroyed two drones as they tried to attack the Ras Tanura refinery. The level of any damage wasn't clear and petroleum supply wasn't affected, but the incident led to the shutdown of several units at the refinery.

Located on Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coast, the Ras Tanura complex is a cornerstone of the kingdom's energy sector. It serves as a vital export terminal for Saudi crude and houses one of the Middle East's largest refineries. It is the kingdom's core departure point for crude exports to Asia and central to the global oil supplies, handling shipments of over 6.5 million barrels a day in oil and oil products.

The stakes for global oil markets are high. Saudi Arabia is relied upon to surge output and stabilize markets during crises, but any physical degradation of its export capacity neuters this critical fail-safe.

The drone attacks come as exports of Middle Eastern oil through the Strait of Hormuz have almost ground to a halt after Iranians forces struck passing tankers.

Four oil tankers were attacked Sunday, a British Navy watchdog said, including a motor fuel cargo chartered by Saudi Aramco.

Only three oil vessels from Persian Gulf monarchies crossed the strategic waterway Sunday, according to Kpler. That led to a collapse of exports from 22 million barrels a day to 2.8 million barrels a day, the commodities-data company said. About 706 non-Iranian tankers are now anchored outside the Strait unable to cross, it said.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps later claimed responsibility for three attacks on commercial ships in the strait, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Iranian ships have warned vessels they are banned from the strait, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center, which informs shippers on behalf of the U.S. and U.K. Navies.

"Commercial traffic has effectively stopped," data provider Windward said in a note. "Hundreds of vessels are now at anchor or adrift."

The developments broaden the impacts of the Iran conflict, which has rapidly escalated to paralyze other critical services across the region.

In the neighboring United Arab Emirates on Monday, Amazon Web Services suffered a disruption to its services after unidentified objects struck one of its data centers, causing a fire. Amazon didn't elaborate on what caused the incident, but the fire broke out as Iranian projectiles continued to strike the U.A.E.

The hit could imperil the U.A.E.'s agenda to establish itself as a premier global hub for data centers powering artificial intelligence. The country has invested billions, aggressively courting Western tech giants and developing sovereign AI models to diversify its economy.

Airports around the region have also been shut by the fighting.

Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com, Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 02, 2026 08:44 ET (13:44 GMT)

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