November 24, 2004: 12:59 PM EST
RAS TANURA, Saudi Arabia (CNN)

Though oil prices have retreated from their
record highs of October, a terrorist attack
on oil installations in Saudi Arabia could
send them soaring to new heights, according
to a leading industry analyst.

Such attacks now take place on a regular
basis in neighboring Iraq, where insurgents
have targeted oil pipelines and even staged a
suicide attack on an offshore oil facility.

CNN has been investigating security at Saudi
Arabia's main oil facilities and found that
while the installations have impressive and
elaborate protective measures, they are not
completely secure.

"I could sit down now with my training in the
CIA and people I know and do a concerted
military attack on Saudi facilities, standoff
attacks with rockets, and take 5 (million) to
6 million barrels off the market," said
former CIA officer Bob Baer.

That would represent more than half of Saudi
Arabia's daily output. Saudi Arabia is the
largest exporter of oil in the world and has
one-quarter of the world's oil reserves.

Baer also pointed to the possibility of a
suicide air attack, similar to the
coordinated attacks on New York and
Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, which could
wipe out a key facility such as Ras Tanura,
the world's largest oil refinery. Ras Tanura,
like most Saudi facilities, is in that
country's Western Provinces, near the Persian
Gulf.

Baer said he is not the author of this
worst-case scenario -- it was first studied
many years ago by engineers at Aramco, the
state-owned oil company that operates Saudi
Arabia's facilities.

"If a major facility was knocked out, such as
Ras Tanura export facility, and it looked
like it would be out for many months, then
the market would be absolutely frenzied and
prices would rise through the sky almost,"
said Adrian Binks, publisher of the Petroleum
Argus newsletter.

Aramco's boss told CNN he is confident that
the oil would keep flowing even in the event
of an attack.

"We always have drills about 'what-ifs' and
therefore a terrorist incident, if it were to
happen, it's not going to be worse than an
industrial accident in a volatile industry
like ours," said Abdallah S. Jum'ah, Aramco
CEO.

Security up close

Jum'ah invited CNN to tour Ras Tanura and the
nearby shipping facility of Sea Island, where
Saudi oil is pumped into tankers for export.

There is double fencing around all
facilities, some of it electrified, and
security patrols guard an area in which
millions of gallons of oil are stored in
above-ground tanks. In addition, officials
advised that many of the more elaborate
security precautions are hidden from view and
that Saudi oil facilities have the same level
of protection as military bases.

Jum'ah and others at Aramco said that the
Saudi oil infrastructure is protected by the
sheer vastness of its facilities, which are
spread out over thousands of square miles.
Terrorists would have to succeed in multiple
attacks in order to take the system off-line.

Bob Baer agreed, but said that doesn't make
Aramco invulnerable.

"At the end of the day, you can put trillions
of dollars into security but these facilities
are mostly above ground. A concerted attack,
like they've attacked some of these compounds
in Saudi Arabia, a military attack, you can't
protect against it," he said.

Baer said it also would be easy to use
rocket-propelled grenades against the
thousands of miles of pipelines that snake
across Saudi Arabia.

Aramco officials said damage caused by
pipeline attacks, even if successful, could
be easily and quickly repaired.

Less easily repaired would be the damage to
already volatile oil markets, even if an
attack is on a small scale. "The most likely
scenario in Saudi Arabia is an attack on
pipelines. ... Then prices would spike for a
very short time," Binks told CNN.

Members of the group known as Al Qaeda in
Saudi Arabia have killed and then mutilated
Western oil workers on at least two
occasions. Oil installations have not yet
been targeted, but that could change.

Baer said what is happening in Iraq should
serve as a warning. "These people are
perfectly capable of -- if they got some sort
of victory in Iraq -- of turning south and
going against the Saudi royal family and
after the facilities. I've got no doubt about
that."

-- From CNN Senior Investigative Producer
Henry Schuster and
Senior International Correspondent Nic
Robertson

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石井　吉徳
富山国際学園特命参事
富山国際大学教授
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