South Pars
Iran share of the world largest natural gas field, shared with Qatar North Dome; struck by Israel 6 April 2026.
Last refreshed: 7 April 2026
Why is South Pars the single most consequential target in the Iran war?
Timeline for South Pars
Mentioned in: Khademi killed and the IRGC's gatekeeper falls
Iran Conflict 2026Israel claims 85% of Iran's chemicals
Iran Conflict 2026Mentioned in: Netanyahu backs Trump's 48hr ultimatum
Iran Conflict 2026Mentioned in: Trump: open Hormuz in 48h or face war
Iran Conflict 2026Mentioned in: Iran threatens crushing strikes on UAE
Iran Conflict 2026- What is South Pars and why is Israel bombing it?
- South Pars is Iran share of the world largest natural gas field, supplying 70 to 80 per cent of Iran national gas production. Israel struck its Asaluyeh petrochemical complex on 6 April 2026 as part of a campaign targeting Iran hard-currency hydrocarbon exports.Source: Briefing #61, Lowdown
- Is the South Pars gas field shared with Qatar?
- Yes. South Pars is Iran half of the same geological reservoir that Qatar calls North Dome. The two countries extract from opposite sides of a single subsurface field, which is the largest natural gas reservoir in the world.
- How much of Iran gas comes from South Pars?
- South Pars supplies roughly 70 to 80 per cent of Iran national gas production, processed onshore at Asaluyeh. Record output reached 730 million cubic metres per day in 2025 across 24 operational phases.
- Can you destroy South Pars with air strikes?
- You can destroy the surface infrastructure at Asaluyeh that processes the gas, which strands the reserves underground and eliminates Iran export capacity. You cannot destroy a subsurface reservoir with air strikes, so Trump threat to destroy "the entirety" of South Pars is geologically incoherent.Source: Briefing #61, Lowdown
Background
South Pars was struck again on 6 April 2026, when the Israel Defence Forces hit the Asaluyeh petrochemical complex, Iran's largest. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claimed the combined damage from Asaluyeh and the earlier Mahshahr strike (5 April) has taken 85% of Iran's petrochemical export capacity offline . Independent verification is constrained because Planet Labs commercial satellite imagery of Iran has been blacked out by undisclosed US government order since 9 March.
South Pars is Iran's share of the world's largest natural gas field, which straddles the maritime boundary with Qatar (who calls its half North Dome). Discovered by NIOC in 1990 with first gas in 2002, the field has 24 operational phases and supplies roughly 70–80% of Iran's national gas production, processed onshore at Asaluyeh. Total led early development but withdrew after the 2018 US JCPOA exit; CNPC took over before exiting in 2019. Petropars completed Phase 11 independently in 2023, Iran's first fully domestic deepwater development, with record output of 730 mcm/day reached in 2025. An earlier Israeli strike on 18 March 2026 hit four Asaluyeh gas treatment plants (Phases 3–6), halting exports to Iraq and driving a 5% surge in European TTF gas prices. Iran retaliated by striking Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facility.
The wider significance is geological as much as economic. The shared reservoir means extraction pressures on the Iranian side propagate to Qatar's North Dome half; sustained Israeli strikes on Iranian surface infrastructure compound long-term uncertainty over LNG supply that underpins 20–25% of global LNG exports. Pre-war Iranian petrochemical exports earned roughly $14 billion annually, a hard-currency stream that compressed by an order of magnitude in three weeks of bombing. Trump separately threatened to destroy "the entirety" of South Pars if Qatar was attacked again, a geologically incoherent claim (you cannot destroy a subsurface reservoir with air strikes) that nonetheless reflects how central the field has become to the war's escalation calculus.
