IRAQ/AT SEA: Iraqi and U.S. navies provide security for Iraqi oil terminals in northern Gulf

Record ID: 343686

  • Title: IRAQ/AT SEA: Iraqi and U.S. navies provide security for Iraqi oil terminals in northern Gulf
  • Date: 7th August 2007
  • Summary: VARIOUS AUSTRALIAN NAVY PERSONNEL MONITORING WATERS VARIOUS TANKERS AND CARGO SHIPS AT SEA VARIOUS UNITED STATES COAST GUARD VESSEL, USGC ADAK
  • Embargoed: 22nd August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVAE0MY1O3GI9IHDL45DASKVSKKA
  • Story Text: Iraqi and U.S.-led forces patrol two major Iraqi oil terminals in the Gulf to guard against any potential attack.
    The dials say the ABOT and KAAOT oil terminals are operating normally, but seen through the crosshairs of a machine gun, the scene loses its sense of normalcy.
    ABOT (al Basra oil terminal) and KAAOT (Khwar al Amaya oil terminal) are the two main Iraqi oil exporting installations, situated off Iraq's narrow coast, in waters which have recently been the centre of international attention.
    Continually patrolled by destroyers and warships, it was in this disputed stretch that 15 British military personnel were captured by Iran earlier this year and accused of straying into its waters, while a long-running dispute over the Shatt al-Arab border river has helped spark war in the past. It was also here where suicide boat bombers in April 2004 forced the temporary suspension of ABOT and KAAOT's operations.
    Most of Iraq's oil - the world's third largest reserves, and which accounts for 95 percent of the battered economy's revenues - flows through the two terminals. It is estimated that ABOT is a conduit for up to 900,000 barrels a day, while KAAOT unloads 700,000.
    "About 90 percent of their oil exports flow through these two terminals and the counterflow to that is the money for that oil that flows back into Iraq that will aid in the reconstruction and economic rebuilding of the country," said United States Navy Captain Paul Severs.
    When three dhows exploded in the vicinity of the terminals in April 2004, killing two American sailors and injuring five, some experts estimated a loss of 80 million U.S. dollars for every day the terminals were out of service. Nevertheless, between January and November 2006, the loading of 345 oil tankers has been metered at the ABOT terminal, with total exports averaging 1.595 million barrels per day according to the US Navy.
    Three kilometre (1.86 mile) exclusion zones around the oil terminals have been in place since 2004. On the edge of the KAAOT exclusion zone, visible from the oil terminal, an Iranian look-out post keeps watch.
    "In a nutshell, our job is to patrol around the oil platforms, and to insure them from a terrorist attack, or an insurgent attack and also to insure the sovereignty of Iraqi waters," said the commanding officer of an Australian destroyer, Captain Ian Middleton.
    The U.S. Coast Guard has also been drafted in as part of the security operations.
    "We're inside Iraqi territory waters and these platforms, the oil platforms KAAOT and ABOT, we maintain the security zone around them and make sure that they're safe because this is the territorial waters of Iraq,"
    said Captain Jose Diaz, Commanding Officer of the USCG vessel ADAK.
    The U.S. Navy has been subjecting Iraqi navy personnel to vigorous training in surveillance, inspection and defence, and also assigning them to patrol the installations.
    But it is responsibility for the security for Iraq's main lifeline which motivates those observing the treacherous waters through the machine gun crosshairs.
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