The impact on energy flows of US and Israeli military attacks on Iran and Iran's drone and missile launches against its neighbours could reopen debate in the European Union over banning Russian natural gas imports, Norway's energy minister said on Tuesday.
European gas prices have jumped 75 per cent this week, hitting multi-year highs as hostilities in and around Iran have impacted gas exports from the Gulf.
Major liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter Qatar halted production on Monday.
"The EU has been very clear that they want to liberate themselves from Russian oil and gas, but then the events of the last three-four days have also been difficult," Norway's Energy Minister Terje Aasland told a conference in Oslo.
"With the geopolitical situation we see now, I believe the debate will be revived," Aasland said. European Union countries last month gave final approval to a ban on gas imports by late 2027 from Russia, their former top supplier, some four years after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Norway is Europe's biggest gas producer, meeting around 30 per cent of demand. It also supplies about 20 per cent of the continent's oil.
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards senior official said on Monday that Iran would fire on any ship trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the gulf. Tankers from Qatar, which produces about 20 per cent of the world's supply of LNG, use that route.
(Reporting by Nora Buli; editing by Terje Solsvik and Jason Neely)
