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Abqaiq’s message to Washington
Paul Rogers, openDemocracy
The al-Qaida attack on an oil facility in Saudi Arabia in February 2006, which came nearer to success than was reported at the time, has increased pressure on United States forces in the region.
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Nearly nine months ago, on 24 February 2006, there was an attack on an oil processing plant at Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia. The initial news reports of the incident were quickly matched by announcements from the controlling Saudi Aramco company that little damage had been done and that all the security measures in place had worked. Only one bulletin at this early stage (on Al-Arabiya TV) spoke of a major incident, involving an explosion that had rocked the facility and set off a fire.
This in turn was countered by a statement from the Saudi minister of petroleum and mineral resources, Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi, who announced that Saudi security forces and Saudi Aramco employees had “forestalled a terrorist attempt” that “resulted in a minor fire which was immediately extinguished, and…no changes in the production levels of oil or gas in Saudi Arabia” (see PennEnergy, Oil and Gas News, 24 February 2006). Other official sources spoke of two car-bombers failing to penetrate the outer-security perimeter and into any significant part of the complex.
An earlier article in this series suggested that this was far from the end of the matter (see “Abqaiq’s warning”, 2 March 2006). The article pointed out that although there had been previous paramilitary attacks on offices and residential compounds maintained by oil companies operating in Saudi Arabia, this was the first major attempt to attack a production complex itself.
Moreover, Abqaiq is not just any facility: it is the largest oil-processing plant in the world. It is situated to the northeast of some of the largest Saudi fields (including the huge Ghawar field), and processes around two-thirds of all Saudi oil; from it, the oil is pumped onto tank farms and refineries at the Ras Tanura terminal – itself the world’s biggest – where it is loaded into tankers and exported.
…The matter might have rested there but for two unexpected developments: the recent, sudden interest by the United States navy in the security of Saudi oil-export facilities, and information from several reliable sources that the Abqaiq attack was much more serious than either Saudi Aramco or the Saudi government has admitted.
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001
(9 Nov 2006)
G20 to push to open up oil trade
John Garnaut and Matt Wade, Sydney Morning Herald
THE world’s most powerful central bankers will meet in Melbourne this weekend to plot to pry open the global oil cartel, with the aim of bringing down petrol prices at the pump.
As the oil price edges back up towards $US60 a barrel, they want to loosen the world’s sclerotic oil and gas markets and avert a destructive scramble for energy resources. ..
The [Australian] Treasurer, Peter Costello, who will co-chair the meeting of the Group of 20, has circulated the ambitious agenda to the central bank chiefs and finance ministers of the world’s 20 most influential economies, including the US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, and the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan.
“We would like there to be some agreement that cartels should not operate in open global and competitive energy markets,” Mr Costello said.
(13 Nov 2006)
The comedy doesn’t stop there, Costello portrays himself as going in to bat for Aussie families. A database of energy reserves and production is on the G20 agenda, and a Dr Frankenstein effort on the expired World Trade Organisation talks, which is what will draw most of the protestors and the reactionary overpolicing that typifies such events.-LJ
Oil revenues fuel resistance to U.S.
Kim Murphy, L.A. Times
The increase in oil prices is the common denominator in some of Washington’s most implacable foreign policy challenges. From the U.S. government’s perspective, oil money empowers regimes to defy American policy on a host of key issues, including nuclear nonproliferation and human rights.
Viewed another way, oil allows developing nations to challenge what their leaders see as years of lopsided U.S. dominance over international markets and the politics of the Middle East, Latin America and Central Asia.
(12 Nov 2006)
Former CIA chief: ‘Oil dependence threatens US, Israel’
MICHAL LANDO, The Jerusalem Post
The case for reducing the United States’ dependence on oil is most often argued by environmentalists concerned about global warming and ozone depletion. But a growing number of people are drawing what they consider to be a crucial link between oil and national security. They argue that America’s reliance on oil is the number one security threat facing the country.
One figure who has emerged in this debate is co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger and former director of the CIA, R. James Woolsey, who spoke in New York this week at an event sponsored by the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank that seeks to define and promote America’s interests in the Middle East. Woolsey argues that America’s reliance on oil as the primary source of fuel is one of the greatest barriers to national security and threatens both the US and Israel.
“The way strategically over the long run to weaken the enemies of Israel, such as Ahmadinejad, is to weaken the role of oil,” Woolsey said. “Oil makes it harder to avoid genocide in Darfur because the Sudanese have a deal with China, and it makes it harder to deal with Iran, because China and Iran have an oil deal.”
(3 Nov 2006)
