The risk of a terrorist attack on most stretches of crude oil and natural gas pipelines in the United States is “relatively low,” according to an energy security report that was released last Monday and forwarded to the White House Office of Homeland Security.

“Large amounts of these pipelines are underground, making them less vulnerable to attack. Most pipelines are also relatively easy to repair over the short term. In many cases, alternative routes are also available to move sufficient amounts of product around the site of a terrorist attack so as to prevent major disruption,” said security experts Robert Housman and Dee Martin at the Houston law firm of Bracewell and Patterson LLP, which represents a number of energy companies.

Given these factors, security efforts should focus on “high-risk pipelines” — those built above-ground — and “high-risk components” such as compressors and pumping stations, the report recommended.

Perhaps the most vulnerable of all U.S. pipelines is the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which transports 20% of the nation’s crude oil production and supplies 45% of California’s crude oil needs, it said. Roughly half of the line, about 400 miles, is located above-ground and in unpopulated areas. Steps already have been taken by Alyeska, the pipeline’s owner, the U.S. military and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect the pipeline and respond to an attack, the report said.

The Bracewell and Patterson security experts emphasized that pipelines and other energy companies will need “substantial help from the federal government” in order to “adequately confront” future terrorist threats. “No one can reasonably expect any one company or set of companies to be able to secure a major U.S. port or guard a nuclear facility from an air assault,” they said.

The report singled out the four natural gas pipelines that serve California — PacificGas Transmission Northwest, Kern River Gas Transmission, El Paso Natural Gas and Transwestern Pipeline — as being “highly difficult” to defend from an attack, given the “vast distances” that the lines cross. “The impact of taking any one of these pipelines offline would be significant.” The four lines supply 5.7 Bcf of gas to the state each day.

Moreover, “if terrorists launched a coordinated series of pipeline attacks” — a capability that they possess — “the effect could be to cripple America’s energy distribution infrastructure,” the report noted.

The law firm’s security experts said the liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments that pass through Boston Harbor are a “vulnerable target,” despite all of the safety precautions — double-hull tankers and the re-routing of planes from Logan Airport — that were taken by the tanker industry, U.S. Coast Guard and others prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. “Even these measures are inadequate to protect against a determined terrorist. A number of vulnerabilities remain, including attacks by [a] rocket-propelled grenade, Stinger missile, suicide boat, plane, planted bomb or even high-caliber weapons fire. Recognizing these risks, following the Sept. 11 attacks,” the Coast Guard in Boston temporarily banned LNG shipments through the harbor until a security plan was devised. The ban was lifted in mid-October.

Housman and Martin did not comment on whether they believed Boston Harbor to be adequately secured now, given the added security precautions that have been developed by the Coast Guard, and local, state and federal agencies.

The report also cited the Saint Lawrence Seaway, Great Lakes and Panama Canal as being vulnerable to terrorist attacks. “…Domestically both the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes are major transit routes for products and raw materials, including within the energy sector. Similarly, at the international level, large amounts of petroleum products transit by tanker through the Panama Canal…An attack on a tanker at any one of these bottlenecks would have tremendous consequences both for the energy industry and the movement of goods,” it said.

A terrorist attack on domestic oil or natural gas rigs could pose a “potential for serious harm” to the public in the event of large oil spills or releases of natural gas, the security experts said, but they doubt that such large-scale attacks on rigs could occur in the United States.

The damage inflicted on U.S. rigs would likely be “much less significant” than when Iraq destroyed Kuwait’s oil fields during the Persian Gulf War, they said. “While the United States has large numbers of oil exploration facilities, these facilities produce substantially less oil than do their Kuwaiti counterparts. Moreover, …the Iraqi forces destroyed almost the entire energy infrastructure of Kuwait — a feat no terrorist could pull off in the United States.”

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