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To: NOW who wrote (11476)	4/7/2004 2:32:21 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 110194

Robert Baer's book "Sleeping With the Enemy" explores some of those themes. the first chapter, which discusses the highly vulnerable nature of Saudi oil assets (and consequently global supply) at a few key bottleneck points is quite alarming, and first appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly last year. i think i quoted some of it on Heinz' thread last year.

To: NOW who wrote (11476)	4/7/2004 2:54:30 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

here're some points from that article which i summarized a year ago: Saudi reserves are highly concentrated in a few fields, which could be taken out of commission by hitting just a few points downstream. an article in the latest Atlantic Monthly by a former CIA agent in the ME helpfully points out a number of facilities terrorists can target for maximum effect: * Abqaiq, the world's largest processing facility. a moderate to severe hit here would knock off 5 or 6 million barrels a day, and production would remain 4Mbpd below normal for 7 months. this reduction alone would equal the entire OPEC reduction during the 1973 embargo. * Ras Tanura, especially Platform No. 4 which handles half the daily volume of 4.5Mbpd and could be attacked by a surface boat or readily available Kilo-class submarine * Pump Station No. 1, which pumps 900 Kbpd to Yanbu * the pipe run from Abqaiq to Ju'aymah and Ras Tanura as long as the fundamentalists get their regular monthly cheque from the sheikhs, it's not likely to happen this is an important point. Saudis pay a lot of protection money to the radicals in hopes that they will direct their furor elsewhere. according to the UN Security Council, Saudi Arabia has given Al Qaeda $500 million over the last decade. Fahd's favorite son Abdul Aziz put together a $100 million aid package for the Taliban in 1997. but apparently there are a lot of elements, even among the princes, who want to take Saudi oil offline for a couple years so that they can take down the House of Saud and have a revolution. if they succeed, we could be looking at $150 oil. Message 18853538