War Is Exacerbating Iran’s “Water Bankruptcy” |
Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.
This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
Last week, following attacks on critical energy and water facilities escalating, the Israeli-U.S. war in Iran entered a new stage. “Now the war on infrastructure has started,” said Kaveh Madani, a water researcher at the United Nations University and former deputy vice president of Iran.
On March 18, Israel struck the South Pars gas field in Iran, the largest natural gas field in the world. Iran is heavily dependent on South Pars for its energy supply; by some estimates, the field accounts for 90 percent of the country’s domestic energy use.
The assault on South Pars kicked off a series of retaliatory attacks from Iran on energy facilities throughout the region, including an aerial strike that caused considerable damage to Ras Laffan, a sprawling liquified natural gas facility in Qatar — the world’s largest LNG export hub. About one fifth of the globe’s LNG supply comes from this plant, according to Bloomberg. Qatar’s energy minister said the damage could take three to five years to repair.
This escalation in hostilities has added more pressure to an already fraught situation affecting the energy industry in the Persian Gulf, which will continue to have implications both regionally and worldwide. The price of Brent crude, considered the global benchmark of crude oil prices, spiked after the South Pars attack, reaching nearly $120 per barrel. It has since fallen a bit, to just under $100 per barrel.
But another casualty of the attacks on infrastructure is water security. Even before oil and gas facilities became targets of war, water desalination plants in the Gulf were being struck. In a region with scarce freshwater, these plants deliver clean drinking water to millions — particularly in Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, where roughly half or more of their total water supply comes from desalination.
Trump Declares Iran War “Has Been Won” as Pentagon Deploys........