The Message Of Abqaiq (Attack On SA Oil Plant - Largest In World)

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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.

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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.

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