Iran says production at world’s largest gas field partly suspended after Israeli attack

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(Reuters) -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.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Enas Alashray; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Peter Graff)