Ring of steel protects Iraqi lifeblood

BASRA OIL TERMINAL, Iraq, Aug 11 (Reuters) The warships circling the giant oil terminal in the hazy twilight off the Iraqi coast bear silent testimony to its importance.

Basra Oil Terminal is the main source of Iraq's revenues, a key supplier to the global energy market and an obvious target for insurgents aiming to thwart the country's economic recovery.

Warships from the United States, Britain and Australia are there to guard against any seaborne attack as the terminal pumps crude oil into the holds of berthed tankers, while others queue nearby.

Shukur Mahmoud Taha, terminal manager for Southern Oil Company, says 1.8 million barrels a day are being exported.

Twelve nautical miles off the Iraqi coast, twin 48 inch (122 cm) pipes carrying the lifeblood of Iraq from the al-Faw peninsula rise up off the seabed on to the twin platforms of the 1,000 metre-long terminal and into the holds of the tankers.

In his cabin aboard the nearby Royal Navy frigate, HMS Kent, Commander Gavin Pritchard knows the loss of the platform and Khor al-Amaya, its smaller sister terminal being repaired after a fire in May, would be catastrophic for Iraq, which has the world's third largest reserves of oil.

''They are an obvious target to hit for those who want to damage Iraq's economic well-being. It would be an economic and environmental disaster if they were hit,'' he said.

The ships in the small armada spend their days shepherding fishing dhows out of the exclusion zone around the two terminals, sounding their sirens, flashing their lights or broadcasting warnings in Arabic and Farsi to warn them off.

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO On a radar screen on the Kent's bridge, the two oil terminals appear as an oblong red blob, surrounded by a shaded pink area that marks the 2,000 metre exclusion zone and a wider circle that demarcates the 3,000 metre warning zone. When that is breached, the Kent moves swiftly to intercept the offender.

Most of the fishermen have no global positioning systems or radios and are either unaware they are trespassing or are trying to take a shortcut through the zone to get home.

But the nightmare scenario is a hijacked tanker ''going flat out towards the oil platform'', says Pritchard, while cautioning that while ''very plausible'', it would be difficult for al Qaeda or another militant group to execute given the layered defences.

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