Article

2005-03-18 Arabia

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Posted by Fred 2005-03-18 00:00:00|| || Front Page|| [9 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Al Q has to get something going or their credibility will be totally lost on the masses. If they target civilians too much, they will be ratted out. I have a feeling that their assets are stretched, too, so they are at a crossroads.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-03-18 10:19:55 AM|| 2005-03-18 10:19:55 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The problem is that oil attacks are almost completely ineffective...

here comes OldSpook school boys and girls - sorry if I get a little pedantic

Examine the whole route Petrochemicals take from the wellhead to the gas tank.

If they blow up some oil wells, we proven that's only a month or 2 to get them back into operation (c.f. 1st Gulf War). Not to mention a miniscule attack in terms of impact.

If they blow a pipeline up? Well its back within a few days (c.f. the current war in Iraq). Same as above regarding impact.

Shipping dock? Ditto, regarding Iraq and the ability to get these facilities function quickly. Plus its diufficut to get enough explosives close enough to do any real damage.

Sink a Tanker? Maybe, but remember the "Tanker War" where Iraq and Iran tried sinking tanker s in the gulf? No serious economic impact. A USS Cole type operation would be the likely method. But given that the US Navy and the Coasties aree standing watch in most arab-based areas for just this sort of thing, its probably not as likely to succeed.

So why would they do any of these? Mainly because the Media Impact it would generate due to the "environmental impact". Pictures of oil covered "cute-n-furry" critters would bring the Enviros irrationally screaming at Bush and the US in horror, not that they need much prodding.

So other than impressing the terrorists unwitting (or not?) allies in the main stream media who magnify everything into a major defeat for us and victory for them (nevermind the truth) in their zeal to sensationalize any story (and try to drag Bush down), attacks on oil targets above will have no impact on the target other than PR and media attentoin.

Except one

A Refinery

Count the number of refineries.

Remember where they are.

Remember that they have large supplies of highly explosive and flammable products going through miles of exposed pipes. And lots of controls and vlaves that can be opened for spills or closed to build up pressures. Consider the HUGE economic impact of losing even a single refinery worth capacity.

Don't beleive me? Re-Read the beginning of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. Except imagine it in Houston, for example. There's a reason Clancy wrote that and had so much detail . Think about it. There's a lesson there, one that some of us learned a long time ago looking at the old Soviet Union.

I'm hoping that the current crop of people "looking" are looking inward too and doing the right things to defend the refineries - and defend them like the national strategic asset that they are.

You want the great big glaring weakness in the oil chain from the well-head to your gas tank? There it is. A US Refinery is where they will be targeting. And by God we had better wake up or they will hit it.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Especially as only two or three (?) make the environment friendly California gasoline formulation. That's the place that's really vulnerable.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-03-18 5:03:20 PM|| 2005-03-18 5:03:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 And our southern border (like in.... Texas...) is so secure.....

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-03-18 5:39:18 PM|| 2005-03-18 5:39:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 A Clancy refresher for those of you who don't ahve the book (Remember this was written in 1984-86 - and note the terrorists):

They moved swiftly, silently, with purpose, under a crystalline, star-filled night in western Siberia. They were Muslims, though one could scarcely have known it from their speech, which was Russian, though inflected with the singsong Azerbaijani accent that wrongly struck the senior members of the engineering staff as entertaining. The three of them had just completed a complex task in the truck and train yards, the opening of hundreds of loading valves. Ibrahim Tolkaze was their leader, though he was not in front. Rasul was in front, the massive former sergeant in the MVD who had already killed six men this cold night-three with a pistol hidden under his coat and three with his hands alone. No one had heard them. An oil refinery is a noisy place. The bodies were left in shadows, and the three men entered Tolkazeâs car for the next part of their task.

...

"Ishaaa!" the man screamed in terror and shock. Tolkaze shot him in the mouth, and hoped Boris didnât die too quickly to hear the contempt in his voice: "Infidel." He was pleased that Rasul had not killed this one. His quiet friend could have all the rest.

The other engineers screamed, threw cups, chairs, manuals. There was nowhere left to run, no way around the swarthy, towering killer. Some held up their hands in useless supplication. Some even prayed aloud-but not to Allah, which might have saved them. The noise diminished as Rasul strode up to the bloody corner. He smiled as he shot the very last, knowing that this sweating infidel pig would serve him in paradise. He reloaded his rifle, then went back through the control room. He prodded each body with a bayonet, and again shot the four that showed some small sign of life. His face bore a grim, content expression. At least twenty-five atheist pigs dead. Twenty-five foreign invaders who would no longer stand between his people and their God. Truly he had done Allahâs work!

...

Tolkaze smiled, certain that it was the final Sign in a plan being executed by hands greater than his own. Serene and confident, he began to fulfill his destiny.

First the gasoline. He closed sixteen control valves-the nearest of them three kilometers away-and opened ten, which rerouted eighty million liters of gasoline to gush out from a bank of truck-loading valves. The gasoline did not ignite at once. The three had left no pyrotechnic devices to explode this first of many disasters. Tolkaze reasoned that if he were truly doing the work of Allah, then his God would surely provide.

And so He did. A small truck driving through the loading yard took a turn too fast, skidded on the splashing fuel, and slid broadside into a utility pole. It only took one spark . . . and already more fuel was spilling out into the train yards.

With the master pipeline switches, Tolkaze had a special plan. He rapidly typed in a computer command, thanking Allah that Rasul was so skillful and had not damaged anything important with his rifle The main pipeline from the nearby production field was two meters across, with many branch lines running to all of the production wells. The oil traveling in those pipes had its own mass and its own momentum supplied by pumping stations in the fields. Ibrahimâs commands rapidly opened and closed valves. The pipeline ruptured in a dozen places, and the computer commands left the pumps on. The escaping light crude flowed across the production field, where only one more spark was needed to spread a holocaust before the winter wind, and another break occurred where the oil and gas pipelines crossed together over the river Obâ.

And there you have it - Islamic terrorists detroying a refinery from within. In 1986 by Tom Clancy.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Good analysis Oldspook. I would give a bit more weight to blocking a chokepoint (Hormuz/Mallaca/Singapore) with a tanker than you, but otherwise I agree. One other point is that loading and unloading infrastructure are on the coast and consequently are vulnerable to a ship being steered directly into them. In addition, refineries and LPG terminals are often right next door. I have been in an oil refinery recently and storage tanks were no more than 20 meters from shore. Hijack multiple ships and drive them into oil loading facilities and you would take millions of barrels offline for months. A coordinated hijacking of ships is logistically fairly easy and almost impossible to defend against.

Posted by phil_b 2005-03-18 6:23:34 PM|| 2005-03-18 6:23:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Saudi Arabia's primary oil export terminals are located at Ras Tanura (6 million bbl/d capacity; the world's largest offshore oil loading facility) and Ras al-Ju'aymah (3 million bbl/d) on the Persian Gulf, plus Yanbu (as high as 5 million bbl/d) on the Red Sea. Combined, these terminals appear capable of handling around 14 million bbl/d, around 3.0-3.5 million bbl/d higher than Saudi crude oil production capacity (10.5-11.0 million bbl/d), and about 6 million bbl/d in excess of Saudi crude oil production in 2002. Despite this excess capacity, there have been reports that the Saudis are planning to conduct a feasibility study on construction of an oil pipeline from the Empty Quarter of southeastern Saudi Arabia through the Hadramaut in Yemen to the Arabian Sea. Looks to me like they are deliberately building in redundancy.

Posted by phil_b 2005-03-18 6:30:19 PM|| 2005-03-18 6:30:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Aramco is taking this warning seriously. Our friends who are still stuck there just e-mailed with news that the Security Guards, even at the internal gates, are openly holding machine guns!

Posted by TMH 2005-03-18 8:51:36 PM|| 2005-03-18 8:51:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 OldSpook - My worry is CITGO.
Citgo is owned by the Peoples Republic of Chavez.
Chavez is in bed with anybody that hates the US.
Chavez's refineries are in Texas.
Chavez just replaced the top honchos in Texas.
Chavez is shopping Citgo to Saudi

HOUSTON ON EDGE OVER FUTURE OF CITGO

Few places are as jittery as this city when it comes to the future of Citgo Petroleum, the oil refining giant owned by the government of Venezuela and based here.

Popular sentiment in Venezuela is critical of Citgo's rich links to the United States, and the administration of Hugo Chavez has recently signaled its intent to exert greater control over Citgo and perhaps even dismember it.

So, Rafael Ramirez, the president of Venezuela's national oil company, tried to dispel uncertainty in energy markets when asked about the recent turmoil at Citgo, which is the main conduit for Venezuelan oil exports to the United States. Citgo lends its brand to 14,000 independently owned gas stations in this country. It also accounts for almost 15 percent of oil refining output in the United States.

``Houston has nothing to fear,'' Ramirez, who is also Venezuela's energy minister, said in an interview in Caracas. To be sure, at Citgo's headquarters in Houston, the view is somewhat different.

Next week, a group of Venezuelan lawmakers will come to the headquarters to interview officials as part of a recently expanded investigation by Venezuela's National Assembly into reports of corruption at Citgo and PDVSA Services, the Houston-based purchasing arm of Petroleos de Venezuela. Citgo officials declined requests for interviews.

About a month ago, the Chavez administration quietly but abruptly ousted Citgo's chief executive, Luis Marin, only the second Venezuelan to run the company since Petroleos de Venezuela bought control of Citgo in 1990.

Petroleos de Venezuela replaced Marin, who had overseen the recent transfer of Citgo's headquarters to Houston from Tulsa, Okla., with Felix Rodriguez, a senior executive at Petroleos de Venezuela and a vocal supporter of Chavez.

Then, last week, Petroleos de Venezuela took the unusual step of purging Citgo's entire board, replacing longtime directors with people who are explicitly loyal to Chavez and who support increasingly activist policies intended to diversify Venezuela's oil exports to markets other than the United States.

``It's not unusual for our CEOs to serve a relatively short term and then be replaced by another executive,'' said David McCollum, a Citgo spokesman. McCollum declined to comment further on the recent management upheaval at Citgo.

Venezuela's ambitions for Citgo have recently come under greater scrutiny, amid statements from Caracas about the politically charged energy relationship with the United States. Though Rodriguez, Citgo's new chief executive, has insisted that a sale of Citgo's refining assets is not imminent, Ramirez, the president of Petroleos de Venezuela, acknowledged that Venezuela was actively considering the sale of parts of Citgo. Lukoil, a major Russian oil company, has said publicly that it is in discussions with Citgo about possibly refining Russian oil for export to the United States.

``We are in conversations with several interested companies, and are reviewing which refineries are beneficial for the country and which aren't,'' Ramirez said. ``People keep asking us about the sale of Citgo as if it were as simple as selling a pair of shoes.''

Of course, the reliance of the United States on Venezuelan oil imports is not so simple. Oil from the Middle East, West Africa or Central Asia could potentially be redirected to American ports if Venezuela were to curtail oil exports to the United States through severing commercial ties with Citgo. But doing so could help drive up global crude prices.

Energy officials in Venezuela are aware of the benefits of selling oil to the United States; the country's total oil export revenues soared 47 percent in 2004, to $29.1 billion. Yet during a time of elevated oil prices, clarity from Caracas in relation to Citgo seems in short supply in its new home city. Less than a year ago, city officials celebrated the arrival of Citgo, which is transferring 700 jobs to the Houston headquarters out of a total work force of 4,000.

Now the mood has changed amid doubts over the company's future. In an editorial titled ``Our Chavez Problem,'' The Houston Chronicle recently criticized the handling of Marin's ouster as Citgo's chief executive and the Venezuelan government's positioning of Citgo as a bargaining tool in relations with the United States.

Citgo, of course, remains an essential pillar of Venezuela's economy as the nation's principal outlet for foreign crude oil sales and one of the most important operators of oil refineries in the United States, with interests in eight installations in this country that process crude oil into gasoline and asphalt. Those refining assets, analysts say, are among the most coveted in the energy industry.

The growing profitability of Citgo's refineries is the main reason many energy executives in Houston are puzzled as to why Venezuela might consider selling them. Citgo's revenue has more than doubled, to $29.9 billion in the year that ended last Sept. 30, compared with $13.3 billion for the period in 1999, the year Chavez was elected president of Venezuela, said Bryan Caviness, an analyst at Fitch Ratings who follows bonds issued by Citgo.

Citgo's net income also soared during those five years, to $499.2 million in 2004 from $146.5 million in 1999, a trend illustrated by Citgo's payment of a record $400 million dividend to the government of Venezuela last December.

Ramirez, the president of Petroleos de Venezuela, complained that while Citgo was originally acquired with the intent of refining Venezuelan crude it now has to buy about 50 percent of the petroleum for its refineries from other countries, mainly Canada and Mexico. That fact might indicate one option Petroleos de Venezuela is considering when weighing the sale of some of Citgo's assets.

``For a trader this would probably be a good business but it doesn't make any sense for us,'' Ramirez said in reference to its refineries that do not use Venezuelan crude. ``Does that mean we're going to abandon our refineries and leave the American market? No.''

Nor does that mean, of course, that Citgo will remain out of play in Venezuela's strategy of finding new markets for its oil as far afield as China. For several years it has been impossible to separate any discussion of Citgo from the whirlwind of Venezuelan politics.

The Chavez administration is critical of the way previous administrations opened up the oil sector to private investment and acquired foreign refining assets under Citgo's control, insisting these were attempts to hide revenue from the state.

Many Venezuelans, particularly supporters of Chavez, remain profoundly mistrustful of Citgo and skeptical of a company that employs few Venezuelans and until recently did not return large dividends to Petroleos de Venezuela.

``Citgo has never been a good business for Venezuela, and the general population knows it,'' said Rafael Quiroz, a former board member of Petroleos de Venezuela and a vocal supporter of selling Citgo. He said there were ``serious and legitimate doubts'' whether Citgo's revenue had helped ease poverty in Venezuela.

This mistrust was evident in a hearing this week in Caracas on reports of financial irregularities at Citgo. A five-member commission questioned Marin, the former Citgo president, for more than two hours on Tuesday about issues like pension funds and crude oil contracts.

When asked whether Citgo was in fact profitable for Venezuela, or whether it should be sold, Marin offered few clues about the ultimate fate of the company.

``That evaluation must be made by the shareholder,'' he said, referring to the Venezuelan state.

It doesn't sound good to this boy.

Posted by 3dc 2005-03-18 9:25:45 PM|| 2005-03-18 9:25:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 The guy is a complete idiot!

"Citgo currently has capacity for refining Group I basestocks only, but it would take a relatively small investment to upgrade the Lake Charles refinery in Louisiana to produce Group II and higher. It's not likely that they're going to get the money from PDVSA, but they might get it from Lukoil," Agashe says.
Despite rising profits, Venezuela has expressed unhappiness with Citgo's performance. PDVSA purchased Citgo Petroleum primarily as an outlet for its heavy and sour crude, but some of Citgo's refineries, including the Lemont, Illinois, plant, are procuring crude oil from Canadian sources, rather than from Venezuela. With the worsening of U.S.-Venezuelan political relations and lower-than-expected use of Venezuelan crude, PDVSA has indicated a growing interest in the energy-hungry Chinese and Indian markets.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050316/nyw104_2.html

Posted by TMH 2005-03-18 9:41:50 PM|| 2005-03-18 9:41:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I would like to see that SOB crawling back when the Chinese bubble bursts!

Chinese, Pequiven discuss petrochem JVs - Venezuela
Published : Friday, March 18, 2005 15:49 (GMT-0400)
A delegation from Chinese oil company Sinopec is currently in Venezuela to discuss petrochemical joint ventures with Pequiven, the petrochemical subsidiary of state oil firm PDVSA, a Pequiven official told BNamericas Friday.
Heading the Chinese delegation is Sinopec''s senior vice-president Wang Tianpu. The joint ventures Beijing-based Sinopec envisions are in the urea-based fertilizers business, and there has been talk of building a fertilizers plant jointly with Pequiven.
The Sinopec delegation toured Venezuela''s largest petrochemical complex, Jose, in AnzoÃ¡tegui state and home to several high-profile petrochemical joint ventures, including Metor in which Pequiven and Japan''s Mitsubishi are partners.
Sinopec and Pequiven have agreed to exchange technical delegations after this initial visit. Sinopec is also interested in advising Pequiven on building infrastructure for offshore natural gas processing as well as in plant construction, where Sinopec has extensive experience, the official said.
Venezuela is home to extensive natural gas reserves, with proven reserves of 150 trillion cubic feet and potential reserves of more than double that. The administration of President Hugo ChÃ¡vez has made it a central tenet of its energy policy to seek to develop these gas reserves.
In related news, Pequiven''s executive headquarters may soon be moved from the capital city of Caracas to MorÃ³n, an industrial city in Carabobo state, the official said. MorÃ³n is home to PDVSA''s El Palito refinery.

By Carlos Camacho

BNamericas.com
http://www.bnamericas.com/story.xsql?id_noticia=312733&Tx_idioma=I&id_sector=9

Posted by TMH 2005-03-18 9:50:38 PM|| 2005-03-18 9:50:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 So why don't we just nationalize Citgo? It's only fair!

Posted by Bobby 2005-03-18 11:34:13 PM|| 2005-03-18 11:34:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 The problem is that oil attacks are almost completely ineffective...

here comes OldSpook school boys and girls - sorry if I get a little pedantic

Examine the whole route Petrochemicals take from the wellhead to the gas tank.

If they blow up some oil wells, we proven that's only a month or 2 to get them back into operation (c.f. 1st Gulf War). Not to mention a miniscule attack in terms of impact.

If they blow a pipeline up? Well its back within a few days (c.f. the current war in Iraq). Same as above regarding impact.

Shipping dock? Ditto, regarding Iraq and the ability to get these facilities function quickly. Plus its diufficut to get enough explosives close enough to do any real damage.

Sink a Tanker? Maybe, but remember the "Tanker War" where Iraq and Iran tried sinking tanker s in the gulf? No serious economic impact. A USS Cole type operation would be the likely method. But given that the US Navy and the Coasties aree standing watch in most arab-based areas for just this sort of thing, its probably not as likely to succeed.

So why would they do any of these? Mainly because the Media Impact it would generate due to the "environmental impact". Pictures of oil covered "cute-n-furry" critters would bring the Enviros irrationally screaming at Bush and the US in horror, not that they need much prodding.

So other than impressing the terrorists unwitting (or not?) allies in the main stream media who magnify everything into a major defeat for us and victory for them (nevermind the truth) in their zeal to sensationalize any story (and try to drag Bush down), attacks on oil targets above will have no impact on the target other than PR and media attentoin.

Except one

A Refinery

Count the number of refineries.

Remember where they are.

Remember that they have large supplies of highly explosive and flammable products going through miles of exposed pipes. And lots of controls and vlaves that can be opened for spills or closed to build up pressures. Consider the HUGE economic impact of losing even a single refinery worth capacity.

Don't beleive me? Re-Read the beginning of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. Except imagine it in Houston, for example. There's a reason Clancy wrote that and had so much detail . Think about it. There's a lesson there, one that some of us learned a long time ago looking at the old Soviet Union.

I'm hoping that the current crop of people "looking" are looking inward too and doing the right things to defend the refineries - and defend them like the national strategic asset that they are.

You want the great big glaring weakness in the oil chain from the well-head to your gas tank? There it is. A US Refinery is where they will be targeting. And by God we had better wake up or they will hit it.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 A Clancy refresher for those of you who don't ahve the book (Remember this was written in 1984-86 - and note the terrorists):

They moved swiftly, silently, with purpose, under a crystalline, star-filled night in western Siberia. They were Muslims, though one could scarcely have known it from their speech, which was Russian, though inflected with the singsong Azerbaijani accent that wrongly struck the senior members of the engineering staff as entertaining. The three of them had just completed a complex task in the truck and train yards, the opening of hundreds of loading valves. Ibrahim Tolkaze was their leader, though he was not in front. Rasul was in front, the massive former sergeant in the MVD who had already killed six men this cold night-three with a pistol hidden under his coat and three with his hands alone. No one had heard them. An oil refinery is a noisy place. The bodies were left in shadows, and the three men entered Tolkazeâs car for the next part of their task.

...

"Ishaaa!" the man screamed in terror and shock. Tolkaze shot him in the mouth, and hoped Boris didnât die too quickly to hear the contempt in his voice: "Infidel." He was pleased that Rasul had not killed this one. His quiet friend could have all the rest.

The other engineers screamed, threw cups, chairs, manuals. There was nowhere left to run, no way around the swarthy, towering killer. Some held up their hands in useless supplication. Some even prayed aloud-but not to Allah, which might have saved them. The noise diminished as Rasul strode up to the bloody corner. He smiled as he shot the very last, knowing that this sweating infidel pig would serve him in paradise. He reloaded his rifle, then went back through the control room. He prodded each body with a bayonet, and again shot the four that showed some small sign of life. His face bore a grim, content expression. At least twenty-five atheist pigs dead. Twenty-five foreign invaders who would no longer stand between his people and their God. Truly he had done Allahâs work!

...

Tolkaze smiled, certain that it was the final Sign in a plan being executed by hands greater than his own. Serene and confident, he began to fulfill his destiny.

First the gasoline. He closed sixteen control valves-the nearest of them three kilometers away-and opened ten, which rerouted eighty million liters of gasoline to gush out from a bank of truck-loading valves. The gasoline did not ignite at once. The three had left no pyrotechnic devices to explode this first of many disasters. Tolkaze reasoned that if he were truly doing the work of Allah, then his God would surely provide.

And so He did. A small truck driving through the loading yard took a turn too fast, skidded on the splashing fuel, and slid broadside into a utility pole. It only took one spark . . . and already more fuel was spilling out into the train yards.

With the master pipeline switches, Tolkaze had a special plan. He rapidly typed in a computer command, thanking Allah that Rasul was so skillful and had not damaged anything important with his rifle The main pipeline from the nearby production field was two meters across, with many branch lines running to all of the production wells. The oil traveling in those pipes had its own mass and its own momentum supplied by pumping stations in the fields. Ibrahimâs commands rapidly opened and closed valves. The pipeline ruptured in a dozen places, and the computer commands left the pumps on. The escaping light crude flowed across the production field, where only one more spark was needed to spread a holocaust before the winter wind, and another break occurred where the oil and gas pipelines crossed together over the river Obâ.

And there you have it - Islamic terrorists detroying a refinery from within. In 1986 by Tom Clancy.

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| 2005-03-18 4:54:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]

Posted by OldSpook 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| 2005-03-18 5:51:21 PM|| Front Page Top

23:58 Spaimble Hupaiper3886
23:50 nada
23:35 Spaimble Hupaiper3886
23:34 Bobby
23:12 Alaska Paul
23:10 Alaska Paul
23:09 Bomb-a-rama
23:05 Bobby
23:02 JosephMendiola
23:02 Bobby
23:00 Bobby
22:58 Desert Blondie
22:56 Bomb-a-rama
22:48 Silentbrick
22:42 Alaska Paul
22:29 James
22:25 Alaska Paul
22:23 James
22:21 Alaska Paul
22:17 Desert Blondie
22:09 Big Sarge
22:08 Frank G
22:03 Desert Blondie
22:01 3dc