Gas & Oil Prices Surge: What’s Driving the Increase?

The price of natural gas for one-month delivery in the TTF market of the Netherlands, a reference in Europe, soars by almost 30 percent, to exceed 70 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), after attacks on gas facilities in the Middle East.

The price of gas, like oil, which today rises more than 6 percent, has begun to escalate after learning of Israel’s attack on the South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, which Iran exploits. This country responded with attacks in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, distanced himself from that attack and assured that he had no prior knowledge that Israel was going to carry it out. ms (af/efe)

Upon his arrival at the summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed his country’s willingness to get involved in the Persian Gulf region “when the guns fall silent.”

“I want us to send a clear signal that we are willing to help, but to do so the fighting must stop,” Merz said, stressing: “We can only get involved when the guns fall silent.”

“Then we will be able to do a lot, including opening the sea routes and keeping them free, but we will not do that while the hostilities continue, but we will only do it when the fighting is over,” he reiterated. Merz added that this will also require an international mandate, which currently does not exist. (efe/reuters)

On the Truth Social platform, Donald Trump explains that the attack on an Iranian gas field, which that country shares with Qatar, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, was carried out by Israel and that the United States had no knowledge of that operation.

In retaliation for that attack, which has driven up oil prices, Iran has twice attacked Ras Lafan, in Qatar, the largest industrial complex and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export port in the world.

If Iran “recklessly decides to attack” Qatar, then the United States, “with or without Israel’s help and consent, will massively destroy the entire South Pars gas field,” the US president wrote in Truth Social. (ap/afp)

Iran is considering a proposal to impose transit fees on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, in what could be an attempt to monetize Tehran’s new control over this critical shipping lane, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas passes.

According to Iran’s Students News Agency, the lawmaker said parliament was considering a bill under which countries using the strait for shipping, energy transit and food supplies would have to pay tolls and taxes to Iran. (afp/reuters)

Kuwait’s Ministry of Information reports that two refineries were burned after drone attacks. The first refinery hit was Mina Al Ahmadi.

Shortly after, another fire broke out against “one of the operating units of the Mina Abdullah refinery, belonging to the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC),” the ministry said on platform X. (dpa/afp)