Gas price soars after strikes on Qatar hub
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Oil and gas prices have risen sharply after fresh strikes hit energy infrastructure in the Middle East, including Qatar's main gas facility.
Gas prices jumped by about 25% on wholesale markets in the UK and Europe in early trading, before easing slightly. We've also been hearing from the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth who says the Pentagon will go to Congress to ask for funding for the war as it continues on.
President Trump says he knew nothing about the Israeli attack on the Iranian South Pars facility; we'll examine what this says about US-Israeli military co-operation.
Also in the programme: The world's longest coastal path is opening in England; and newly discovered letters from the renowned palaeontologist Mary Anning show even she got sick of fossils.
(Photo shows a file photo of QatarEnergy's liquefied natural gas production facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar on 2 March 2026. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.3 | Coming to you live from London, I'm Regina Fijinarban. |
| 0:17.0 | Almost three weeks into the war, and as the conflict escalates with more attacks on energy infrastructure, |
| 0:23.3 | are we starting to see cracks appearing between America and Israel when it come to their joint operations against Iran? |
| 0:30.7 | Gas prices surged on Thursday morning after an attack on Iran's South Pals gas field |
| 0:36.5 | and then a retaliatory strike by Iran on the Ras Lefan gas complex in Qatar. |
| 0:43.5 | Well, the strike on Iran was carried out by Israel, but President Trump says he knew nothing about the strike. |
| 0:50.7 | Posting on his true social platform, he said Israel would not attack the field again unless Iran unwisely decides to attack another innocent nation. |
| 1:00.9 | Well, in the last few hours, the US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegsef has been speaking and he said that the Pentagon would go to Congress to seek funding for the Iran war. He also directly addressed |
| 1:12.9 | the American people, seeking to assure them that America would not be in this conflict for years. |
| 1:19.2 | The media here, not all of it, but much of it, wants you to think. Just 19 days into this |
| 1:25.8 | conflict that we're somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a |
| 1:30.0 | forever war or a quagmire, nothing could be further from the truth. |
| 1:37.6 | Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched |
| 1:43.6 | previous foolish politicians, |
| 1:46.9 | like Bush, Obama and Biden squander American credibility. |
| 1:51.9 | This is not those wars. |
| 1:55.1 | Well, Julia Manchester is the White House correspondent at The Hill. |
| 1:59.3 | I asked her what more Mr. Hegseth said about the Israeli |
| 2:02.3 | attack on the South Pals oil field. We heard Pete Hegzat essentially backing President Trump and |
| 2:09.2 | you know, his statement. You know, to be honest, I don't think he went, the big news, I think, |
... |
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