Prepared for the worst
Looking through the eyes of security experts
By Karen Remo-Listana

Posted: 18 December 2006
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The United States and the Gulf’s oil superpowers are developing a strategy to protect energy facilities against terror attacks.

The US State Department said it has convened a group of US government energy experts chaired by critical infrastructure protection (CIP) team and attended by representatives from State, energy, homeland security, defense, the National Security Council and other agencies to develop a government strategy to address vulnerabilities in cooperation with host nations.

The move was sparked by recent foiled attack to Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq processing facility which controls more than 60% of the world’s total proven oil reserves.

But the security cooperation does not only focus on Saudi Aramco, said Samir S. Raslan, General Manager, Industrial Security, Saudi Aramco in an interview with Pipeline.

“It is a global cooperation,” he said. “Here an illustration of how it works: When I want to protect one of my facilities, I will go for the global market where I can choose a service or equipment that suits my facility.

“It is not limited to a country or to a state. Usually what we do, as an oil company we talk to companies and not to governments. For example, we are planning to develop smart cards.

“Smart cards are already established in Europe in Paris . We talk with companies in different states and we ask them to tell us what they have and then we evaluate them and then take what fits us.”

Raslan also heads the steering committee of the recent ASIS International Middle East conference and exhibition held in Bahrain .

Among the prominent speakers were Richard Clarke, who served the last three presidents as senior White House advisor; Jessica Stern, the foremost US expert on terrorism and author of Terror in the Name of God; and Dr Flynt Leverett, who served at the White House as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council.

Security experts hailed the foiled attack of Abqaiq as a “dramatic testament” to the high level of security Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco have introduced to protect valuable facilities and assets.

At least two pick-up trucks laden with more than one tonne of explosives each tried to storm into the Eastern Abqaiq complex. The trucks were camouflaged as vehicles belonging to Saudi Aramco, which runs that complex and controls most of Saudi Arabia ’s massive hydrocarbon sector.

Security sources said guards at a checkpoint a few hundreds of metres before the complex’s gate opened fire at the trucks, which exploded and killed two security men.

According to Roy Bordes, President and CEO of the Bordes Group, Aramco is a good example in the security arena. “They have very high level of risk. As a result, they address security,” he said on the sidelines of the conference.

“They have five levels of security perimeters around their plant so on the Abqaiq attack, by the time that the vehicle came into the second perimeter, it was very obvious that it is not a valid vehicle and that they were coming in for arms purposes. Hence the security officers opened fired and the vehicle exploded.”

However many plants do not strictly implement the five levels of security perimeters, Bordes said. “Protecting the perimeter of the plant and keeping unauthorized people from coming into the plant is the first key to security. But many plants do not strictly implement or do not have that strategy. So that’s a common loophole in the industry.”

“We were able to stop it because we were prepared for the worst thing,” says Raslan. “We always run risk assessment in each facility and by doing these we know are weak points and make it straight.”

But there isn’t perfect security, he said. “There’s nobody in this world that can say “this area is 100% secured’, that is deception. That is why we have educate all our security people and to educate even the normal citizens.”

“In Saudi Aramco, all the 50,000 employees are security people. They watch and they report every thing they see and our job in the security uniform is to enforce the law and the regulation.”

Posted by Editor Pipeline Magazine