By Benoit Faucon, Summer Said and Sarah McFarlane
Oil companies in the Middle East are tightening security as U.S.
officials say American energy infrastructure in the region is a
likely target for Iranian retaliation following the killing by the
U.S. of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem
Soleimani.
A call by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for all U.S. citizens to
leave Iraq is expected to affect staffing at Exxon Mobil Corp.,
which operates facilities in the country's volatile southern
region. The company should be able to maintain production with
local workers, analysts said.
Exxon Mobil is closely monitoring the situation and has programs
and measures in place to provide security to protect its people, a
spokeswoman said.
The company produces around 400,000 barrels of oil a day at the
West Qurna 1 field in Iraq. Amid rising tensions in the country,
talks between Iraq and Exxon Mobil to build a roughly $50 billion
oil operation have been stalled for months, according to people
familiar with the matter.
BP PLC declined to comment on security or staffing. The company
is a partner in the development of Rumaila, the world's
third-largest producing field, in southern Iraq. Chevron Corp.,
which operates in Iraqi Kurdistan, an area so far unaffected by the
unrest, said the safety of its people and facilities is a
priority.
Iran's oil infrastructure is also vulnerable to attack.
Washington considered striking Iran's offshore platforms following
an attack on Saudi oil facilities in September, which the U.S.
blames on Tehran, said another U.S. official. For now, the Trump
administration has so far favored operations outside Iran, in part
to avoid alienating the Iranian people, U.S. officials said.
Iranian officials have cited the need to preserve an oil
industry built over decades as a reason to avoid an armed
confrontation. War with the U.S. "is not our goal," Bahram Ghasemi,
Iran's ambassador to France, said in an October interview.
"Everything will be destroyed if there is a conflict."
Even before the U.S. strike that killed Maj. Gen. Soleimani in
Iraq, American companies had been taking steps to secure facilities
and protect workers in Iraq amid a steady escalation of
tensions.
U.S. oil-services contractor Baker Hughes this week asked its
U.S. staff to limit trips to Iraq after officials in Washington
advised companies of heightened security risks, according to a
person familiar with the matter.
Baker Hughes didn't respond to a request for comment.
Officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said oil
companies there have put operations on high alert, a status that
requires closer monitoring for possible intrusions and threats to
infrastructure.
As Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ramps up
preparations for new targets, American facilities are considered
the most at risk of retaliation, said U.S. officials familiar with
intelligence on Iranian plans.
Following the September attack on Saudi facilities, U.S.
preparations include at least one scenario in which Iran launches
missile strikes on the Saudi oil terminal of Ras Tanura, according
to a person briefed by the U.S. government.
While repairs to its oil facilities continue, Saudi Arabia says
it has fully restored its production capacity of 12 million barrels
a day. The strikes on Saudi Arabia's Khurais oil field and Abqaiq
-- the world's largest oil-processing facility -- led to the most
extensive outage the oil industry has seen, knocking out 5.7
million barrels of daily crude-oil production, nearly 6% of global
output.
Saudi Arabia's capacity is expected to expand this year
following the end of a dispute with Kuwait over shared oil
fields.
But the naval branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
has recently revived a contingency plan in case of U.S. attack that
calls for strikes on Kuwaiti and Saudi oil platforms with
explosive-laden boats, a person familiar with the IRGC Navy force
said.
The United Arab Emirates' energy assets and its trading hub of
Dubai are also vulnerable to attack, according to this person and a
person familiar with U.S. intelligence operations in the
region.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard has considered targeting Western
expatriates in Dubai, which would heavily undermine the emirate's
role as a safe financial and trading center, according to a former
adviser to the Iranian paramilitary force.
Dubai "will not be safe anymore," the person familiar with the
IRGC Navy said.
After the September attack on Saudi facilities, the U.A.E.
government commissioned a study and found their energy
infrastructure was highly vulnerable, according to a Middle East
diplomat. As a result, Emirati intelligence services have been
trying to de-escalate tensions by reaching out to Iranian
officials, a U.S. official said.
The threat to U.S. interests may have hurt Exxon Mobil's chances
of joining with Qatar on a major gas project, according to a person
familiar with the negotiations.
Qatar, on the advice of its security services, has grown
increasingly reluctant to offer Exxon Mobil a role in the North
Field expansion project because they believe U.S. companies would
be first hit in the event of heightened conflict with Iran, the
person said.
Exxon Mobil declined to comment on the Qatar project. Qatar's
national petroleum company didn't respond to requests for
comment.
Owners of oil tankers said Friday that they had seen no
disruptions of ship flows across the Strait of Hormuz and the
Persian Gulf, but some fear that Western-owned tankers could be
targeted by Iran for attack or seizure. The U.S. accused Iran of
orchestrating attacks on tankers off its southern coast last year,
which Tehran denied.
"There are some more escorts now by Western warships, but not
nearly enough to prevent another attack," said a Greek shipowner
whose company operates more than two dozen oil and product tankers.
"We hope tankers won't get in the line of fire again, but
unfortunately commercial ships are easy targets."
--Costas Paris contributed to this article
Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com, Summer Said at
summer.said@wsj.com and Sarah McFarlane at
sarah.mcfarlane@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 03, 2020 13:46 ET (18:46 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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