Fresh attacks on West Asia gas hubs triggered global concerns of an unprecedented energy crisis as Iran hit Israel’s Haifa and Ashdod refineries with missiles in response to Tel Aviv’s attack on South Pars, the Iranian part of the world’s largest gas field located offshore in the Persian Gulf and owned by Tehran jointly with Qatar.Separately, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said they had “attacked and damaged” a US F-35 fighter jet.Oil prices jumped amid the attacks on energy infrastructure, with Brent crude rising to $118 a barrel before closing at $115. The oil prices stood at $65 a barrel before the conflict started on February 28.US President Donald Trump “dissociated” from the Israeli attack on South Pars, saying he had told (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike energy fields. “I told him, ‘Don’t do that’, and he won’t do that. He agreed,” Trump said in Washington.Iran also attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan, the world’s biggest gas production facility. After the strike, Trump threatened to blow up Iran’s largest gas field if it kept up its attacks on Qatar. Iranian attacks have knocked out 17 per cent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia, QatarEnergy’s CEO Saad al-Kaabi said on Thursday.Saad said two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities were damaged in the unprecedented strikes. The repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes per year of LNG for three to five years, he said.“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Qatar would be—Qatar and the region—in such an attack, especially from a brotherly Muslim country in the month of Ramadan, attacking us in this way,” said Kaabi, who is also Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs.After the oil prices soared, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent intervened and tried to cool down the markets, saying the US was looking to lift sanctions on Iranian oil that was loaded on tankers and was at sea, some 140 million barrels. While China is the prime buyer of Iran’s oil, the US move could also benefit Japan and India. The US could also look at unilateral release of its own reserves.Meanwhile, analysts said that since Qatar had closed the Ras Laffan facility at the start of the conflict, and the Iranian strike last night would not have an immediate impact on supplies, however, production was not unlikely to resume till June or July. Qatar’s Ministry of Interior said a fire at the site had been “preliminarily brought under control”.Petroleum Ministry Joint Secretary Sujata Sharma, answering questions if Qatar facility attack would affect India, said, “Our supplies are being diversified. We are trying to pick up cargo from other sources. Some of our LPG is coming from the US.”Iran’s Foreign Abbas Araghchi said the attack on Ras Laffan only employed a “fraction of its power”. In an apparent threat to the US, Israel and Gulf nations, he said there would be “zero restraint” if Iranian infrastructure was struck again.In Washington DC, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine, when asked about Iran still having the capability to launch strikes across the Gulf weeks into the war, acknowledged Iran retained “some capability”. They came into this fight with a lot of weapons, he said.