Thursday, February 15, 2007

Possible attacks on Canadian Oil facilities?
Don't laugh...It's possible!

I was disturbed that a branch of Al Qaeda has seen fit to recognize the importance of Canadian oil to the economics of the United States and how important our oil industry is to the U.S.

The story first broke yesterday on CTV News.

A couple of years ago I asked the same questions about security around the North Atlantic Refinery in Placentia Bay, the facilities in downtown Halifax owned by Imperial, and in New Brunswick owned by the Irvings.


I don’t think anyone took me serious then.
Then along comes this posting by the terrorist cell.

If anyone thinks there is little concern, let me refresh their memory on who this group is and what their capabilities are.


Twice now, to my memory they have attacked the Ras Tanura oil facility deep in Saudi Arabia.
The first time was with a small group of terrorists that tried to get into the facility and attack both foreign oil workers and the refinery system there.


The second time was with a larger group of people who also failed in their attempt to disable the facility. Both times, small weaponry was used but still with the loss of life.

The third time they try they may very well succeed. Any successful attempt at bringing down the facilities at Ras Tanura would possibly remove nearly 6.6 million barrels of crude oil a day from world markets.


While knocking out the North Atlantic Refinery would be miniscule in the world scale of refineries, its removal from the markets would have enormous economic impact-not just because of the fact it is a refinery, but for the fact that an economic target was successfully nailed by a terrorist group within North America again.

I won’t even get into what the ramifications are for the economy, let alone fuel pricing.


If these companies are going to take this threat lightly, they’re headed for a world of trouble.

There is nothing so dangerous as a determined enemy.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Pa! My blog is moved onto here too now! thought I'd leave you a comment! I heard about the possibility of these places being attacked the other day on tv...scary!