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On Saturday morning the US and/ or Israel attacked the Khuzestan Petrochemical Special Economic Zone at Mahshahr and several other petrochemical sites around Ahvaz, a city of 1.3 million (think Dallas, Texas). These facilities manufacture engineering polymers for local Iranian industries, including construction and electronics. While these products obviously could have military uses, they are mainly civilian, and so the strike was another in a long series of war crimes aimed at deindustrializing Iran and reducing it to a fourth world country like Chad.
The deputy governor of Khuzestan Province, Valiollah Hayati said, “In this attack, the Fajr 1 and 2, the Rajal, and the Amir Kabir petrochemical companies have been hit.”
Khuzestan Province has a population of around 5 million, roughly analogous to Alabama. Its area is 24,700 square miles, roughly that of West Virginia. It is an oil-rich province.
Photo of Ahvaz, Iran, by ariyan Dv on Unsplash
In and of themselves these attacks don’t have an international impact. These strikes on civilian infrastructure, however, are met with Iranian attacks on regional oil and gas facilities.
In other words, the bombing of Khuzestan is going to cost you at the pump.
Exhibit A is the Iranian drone attack on the Shuwaikh oil sector complex, including the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation Headquarters, which left it in flames. Previous Iranian strikes at Gulf oil facilities had targeted refineries near the coast. As Iran’s own petrochemical and gas industries are being attacked by Israel and the US, however, Tehran is widening the reach of its retaliation to the leadership of the Gulf petroleum industry.
On Friday, the Mina Al Ahmadi oil refinery in Kuwait was struck, and set ablaze. Mina Al Ahmedi used to refine 346,000 barrels of petroleum a day, but some of its units had already be forced to close because of Iranian drone attacks in March. The same is true of the Mina Abdullah refinery, with a 454,000 barrel-a-day capacity.
This week Iran also hit Kuwaiti power and desalination plants doing substantial damage. Some 90% of Kuwait’s drinking water is from desalinization, and if the strikes on these units continue, the 5 million residents of Kuwait, 70% of them expatriates, may have to leave until repairs can be done. Kuwait is normally the world’s tenth largest oil producer, putting out 2.5 million barrels a day or more. The world used to produce 100 million barrels a day of oil, but the Iran War has probably taken a good 10 million barrels a day off the market. Oil markets are tight because people who drive gasoline cars or diesel trucks or fly on passenger planes don’t have many alternatives, and it isn’t likely that other producers can ramp up production quickly. So a loss of 10% is going to double the price of gasoline, at least.
Photo of Kuwait City by JC Gellidon on Unsplash
Iran also hit a major gas plant in the United Arab Emirates, though it mainly produced for the domestic markets.
Iran’s leaders are signaling with these strikes on Arab Gulf oil giants that if President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come after their power plants and civilian infrastructure, they will put gasoline way up for everyone in the world. And they can do it.
Gasoline prices are set anyway to spike from mid-to-late April, as the last of the petroleum tankers that had filled up before the war deliver their cargoes, and after that must remain empty.
Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor in the History Department at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole
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