Energy Firms Seek New Answer to Security Risks
Posted on January 31, 2013
LONDON—This month’s attack on an Algerian gas plant is forcing global oil giants to rethink protection of oil fields in the Middle East and Africa, a new reality that could potentially boost the cost of crude production.
Major oil companies have long been a target of kidnappings and low-level sabotage, but the unprecedented scale of the Algeria attack will likely result in new levels of protection.
The latest developments are part of a broader backdrop of jitters in the oil industry after an assault by suspected Islamist militants on the remote In Amenas gas plant in Algeria’s Sahara, which is run by BP, Statoil ASA and Sonatrach, left at least 37 foreigners dead.
The new threat represented by the In Amenas attack has prompted what one senior industry executive operating across North Africa called a “sea change in the reality of risk.”
The need for a quick response to the attack is most urgent in Libya, Algeria’s neighbor and a key supplier of high-quality crude and natural gas to Western markets.
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323829504578270181058676450.html