November 11, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1424

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia is standing guard over its vital petroleum assets after a weekend bombing in Riyadh sparked fears on world crude markets that the next attack might target oil facilities in the kingdom, the world’s top exporter.

Analysts said on Monday that militants responsible for Sunday’s soft-target attack on Riyadh residents did not appear sufficiently organised to cause lasting damage to tightly protected production and export centres.

“They could target a bottleneck like a gathering station or an export terminal — but it’s not easy as they are closely guarded,” said analyst Kevin Rosser of Control Risks Group in London.

“Would they be able to carry out an attack that would cause significant disruption and have a big impact on world oil prices ? I doubt it,” said Rosser.

It is hard to imagine how Saudi Arabia, exporter of seven million barrels of oil a day, could further tighten security at oilfields, terminals and refineries already ringed by fences, roadblocks, sensors and armed guards. Yet more layers of protection were added after triple suicide bombings in Riyadh last May killed 35 people.

“There has definitely been an upgrade in security,” said a Western oil industry source, adding there were now still more roadblocks, check points and military guards.

But even the most air-tight security might not guaranteed to prevent an inside job or a sea-borne attack on the kingdom’s east coast Ras Tanura crude terminal, the world’s largest.

Saudi Arabia has been battling a rising wave of militancy since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that are blamed on the Al Qaeda network. Riyadh is doing its utmost to quash militancy through widespread arrests. And Western analysts said militants now appeared to be going after softer targets, as in Sunday’s attack on a compound housing mostly Arabs.

“The latest attack suggests the crackdown is having an impact and it is getting harder to operate,” said Rosser. “There are plenty of people in Saudi Arabia who are willing to carry out an attack, but the cells are now loosely coordinated and are acting largely autonomously.”

Saudi authorities managed to root out Al Qaeda sympathisers at state oil giant Saudi Aramco in the summer of 2001, according to a Saudi official in Washington. And to minimise the chances of militants penetrating its oil sector, Saudi Aramco has asked US firm Identix to install a fingerprint scan system.

In any case, analysts said it might not be in Al Qaeda’s best interests to destroy the kingdom’s economic lifeline.

“Oil is what they think they will inherit,” said Youssef Ibrahim, managing director of the Strategic Energy Investment Group in Dubai. “You don’t want to rob yourself. You get rid of the people running the regime.”

Daniel Neep of the Royal United Services Institute agreed, adding that crippling the Saudi oil industry, which holds a quarter of world reserves, “would do a great deal to ruin their appeal to potential sympathisers”.

While Al Qaeda is likely to fail in any attempt to destroy the kingdom’s oil system, its attacks could dampen Western willingness to invest. But while Westerners might leave, their existing investment is likely to stay put, said one Saudi businessman, requesting anonymity.

“The economy is not going to come to a standstill if the Americans and British go,” he said.

“Their investments will continue, but Western expatriates will be replaced by skilled Asians and Arabs.”—Reuters