India, March 8 -- Global markets remain focused on crude oil prices even as the infrastructure necessary to keep millions of people alive now sits directly in the line of fire in the US and Israel's conflict with Iran that has spread to wider West Asia/Middle East over the past week.

Missiles and drones currently curtail crude production across the Persian Gulf, but analysts warn that water, not just oil, represents the resource most at risk in the arid but energy-rich region.

Within a couple of days of the start of the conflict with Israeli and American airstrikes on Tehran on February 28, the fighting quickly moved towards critical life support systems.

Iranian strikes on Dubai's Jebel Ali port on March 2 landed about 15 km from one ...