The world has finally woken up to the very real threat of terrorism spreading to the maritime environment.
In the rush to implement legislation after 9/11 Terrorism has taken precedence in world affairs. So it should. We have suddenly come to the conclusion that the world is a decidedly less secure place since Bin Laden et al attacked the United States. Candyce Kelshall is a Director of Task International Ltd and a Non Executive Director of Caribbean based Bluewater Defence and Security. She is a Maritime Terrorism and Analytical Techniques Instructor. A former diplomat, she is a published Caribbean military analyst and historian.
Cries have arisen from every quarter implying that the perceived sudden increased insecurity of the world is to be blamed on the stance taken by the US and UK to go to war. Sadly, this is patently unrealistic and is a view perpetuated by those who have not been surveying the world map and the gradual increase in terrorist acts and acts of piracy both on land, on air and on the sea from long before 9/11. The upswing in the terrorism trend began long before its public arrival and the public outrage that quite correctly followed the attack on the United States. Those who denounce a government’s right to protect its citizens are actually arming terrorists. Their bullets are both real and psychological. Indeed any act which spreads fear and confusion and perpetuates a lack of focus and infighting- leading to the disintegration and unity of purpose- is a successful terrorist act for our purposes.
In conventional warfare this tactic is common a distracting minor attack that is designed to split resources, spilt focus and split or lessen the response of the attacked. Dissension among the ranks distracts those whose job it is to uphold the law and ultimately world peace. The public outcry and response to 9/11 is almost an incidence of deja vu and harks back to world war two when Europe was at war. Thousands were dying and only when the US was attacked was the reality that a world war had began in earnest publicly recognised.
Then as now the US entree to the fight does not signal the beginning of struggle. Then as now it signifies the need for world governments to come together and demonstrate forcibly that this will not be accepted. States and individuals who perpetuate and foster terrorism must be told in no uncertain terms that the world will not tolerate acts designed to intimidate states from carrying out their lawful duty to protect their citizens nor will they tolerate acts designed to kill, maim and scare the public. The old adage that we do not negotiate with terrorists must be upheld. In that context , and as quoted by Lord Denning former UK Master of the Rolls , Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. The principle applies to terrorism and the role that Governments must play in anti terrorism efforts. Governments have a duty to protect their citizens and this duty must not only be done by the law enforcement arms of our societies but it must also be seen to be done by terrorists and all those who trade in the currency of fear. Only by determined action and a show of unity and strength will terrorism be combated. Terrorists live in states that have no sovereignty, no controls, no borders, and no laws. Since there is no sovereign state that the law abiding world can declare war on then the world must declare war on terrorism itself, its financiers, its diplomats and its passport holders and it must do so with the support of its populace and with impunity so long as we do not violate the very laws we seek to uphold.
Maritime Terrorism
This movement toward International unification in effort toward combating terrorism can be found in it s most eloquent form in the new International Maritime Organisation’s International Ship and Port Security Code. More than any other public International co-operation agreement this Code indicates a clear intention to work together regardless of flag to assist in the terrorist and piracy issues plaguing the International waters. Quite simply not enough has been done to ensure that the safety criteria demanded of air transport is afforded to maritime transport, cargo and facilities. Coastlines are the most porous of our borders. Little is known of the fact that AL Qaeda was able to smuggle terrorists into the US via LNG tanker into Boston before 9 /11.The ship originated in Algeria. To date the US has reduced shipments from Algeria significantly.
The Floating Bomb
There is a school of thought within the maritime security community which believes that the increase in piracy in SE Asian waters in the last six months may be a sign of militant groups practising to hijack ships to be used as weapons. What is unquestioned is the fact that maritime terrorist acts are becoming more violent, more frequent and more organised. This analysis is based on the available evidence of the types of ships being attacked and the frequency with which they are attacked in ever more sophisticated ways. The attacks are becoming more violent, more frequent and clearly more organised given the prevalence of mobile phones, automatic guns and sat nav, with, in some instances, co-ordinated multiple fast speedboats in attendance. Oil and chemical tankers are becoming the targets at an alarming frequency Conventional thinking suggests that this is because these vessels are manned by smaller crews due to the computerised sophistication of the newer increasingly younger fleet of vessels that safety codes require. The Boston Bergin one of the world’s newest and largest LNG tankers at 135000 cubic meters travelled on its maiden voyage with the bumper crew of 24. Its regular run is between Port Everett Massachusetts and Trinidad. At year end 1999 the world’s LNG fleet consisted of 108 actively trading LNG ships plus three in lay up. Two of the latter were to be re-activated and returned to service. In addition to the existing fleet 21 ships were on order.
Even on the older PCG tankers smaller crews abound compared to other classes of vessel. Terrorist targeting and build up would seem to be the conclusion taking all factors into consideration .This is the view of Aegis Defence Services and Singapore based expert Rohan Gunaratna and Michael Richardson of the South East Asian Institute. Almost as an illustration of this fact is the incident in March 2002 when 10 intruders took control of the oil tanker Dewi Madrim off the coast of Sumatra and for one hour practised steering and slowing the vessel, a complicated and lengthy process aboard a tanker .At the end of the exercise they left the ship as they found it, taking only the Master and first officer with them. There has been more than one instance of this type of attack. The increase in activity in SE Asia could potentially be yet another of the successful diversionary tactics employed by the terror organisations and their special brand of franchise terrorism.
There is no shortage of terrorist groups in the region. It is the prefect, most fertile hunting ground for these organisations to practice hijacking and to hone their techniques in preparation for the main event. As vigilance is increased in the practice area they will move their attention to the soft targets lying in waiting. Terrorist groups are effectively diverting attention from their main interest area by practicing in one region and moving on to the main event when that target has hardened as is inevitable with both ISPS code introduction and the magnified attention of world maritime authorities on the current trouble spots.
Soft Targets
While all eyes are resolutely placed on the area surrounding the Malacca straits …the world oil bottleneck and on the Indonesian coast off Aceh, very little attention is placed on the US underbelly of the Caribbean and the softer targets in the region closest to America’s back yard. Trinidad, Venezuela and the Bahamas where the eyes of the world are not so intently focused and the lower threat could conceivably encourage complacency. These Caribbean countries are among the limited list of natural gas producing and LNG plant countries. Trinidad and Tobago alone accounts for 80 per cent (first quarter 2004) of all US LNG imports. This is up from 68pc of all LNG imports in 2002.This percentage is set to increase as new trains of gas production are added to their current capacity.
LNG and Tanker Terrorism
The US is aiming for as much as 10pc of its total gas usage to be derived from LNG by 2010.The usage is currently 2pc of total gas consumption. US demand is similarly expected to rise from 22.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in 2003 to about 33.8 tcf by 2020. US Department of Energy figures paint a bleak picture for U.S. dependence on imported energy in the coming decades. This is as a result of the current state of domestic energy well heads in the US. Existing well-heads are currently depleted at 29pc annually while demand for natural gas is expected to rise 2pc a year. Imports from Canada, whose own energy demand is increasing, are projected to pick up some of the burden. But this is piped natural gas and not the more convenient compacted LNG .Major other sources are Nigeria, Sao Tome, Trinidad, Venezuela and most probably the Persian Gulf. At present there are four LNG import terminals in the US: Lake Charles, Louisiana; Everett, Massachusetts; Chesapeake Bay, Maryland; Elba Island, Georgia. Most routes of LNG tankers would traverse populated areas, presenting increased potential risk factors.
In the Caribbean any incidents involving an LNG tanker along the Caribbean routes could potentially destroy the economies of the Caribbean islands. Not just tourism but business could be affected. There are over 150 multi-national companies with regional head quarters operating in Trinidad and Tobago. Several thousand more take advantage of the Caribbean manufacturing and service free zones and call centres. Many have outsourced support services and back office services to islands such as Barbados , Trinidad and Antigua. The larger islands in the region are particularly services driven.
Any disruption to communications and banking, insurance and other service sector activities catering to large banking and insurance enterprises in the US and UK could go offline indefinitely. In the pre -9/11 world LNG tankers were considered one of the safest types of ships at sea. These tankers are still as safe as is possible for a vessel of this nature today. BUT this statement is only valid if one pre-supposes that terrorists do not want an easily attainable weapon of mass destruction. The world after 9/11 is a decidedly different place for LNG tankers and other PCG (Petro-chemical /gas ) ships. While maritime piracy is an acknowledged risk in certain oceans, maritime terrorism was less prevalent , tended to be isolated and generally based on one off attacks. Mass casualty maritime suicide terrorism has changed our perceptions of safety at sea. It should also certainly change our perception of the safety of lean crewed LNG tankers. Maritime terrorists are currently combing the world for ways to make their message reach as wide an audience as possible. An LNG tanker is the perfect mass casualty weapon.
The present situation requires taking into account the likelihood of terrorist attacks on LNG infrastructure. The idea that terrorists could attack an LNG tanker en route to the US or Japan or Spain; the three main destinations for LNG leaving the Caribbean; either via sea or with small aircraft on a suicide mission must be recognized as possible. Even heli-bourne attacks are a plausible scenario. The island chain that they sail through en route to their destinations provide any number of soft targets with limited response resources.
Methods of Regional Threat Mitigation
In a circumstance such as this, consideration has to be given to the co-ordination and communication issues that a terrorist hijacking of one of these vessels would create. In a multi-national or multi-agency response scenario pre-determined and agreed command and control functions would be vital to the resolution of an incident-if resolution is even possible depending on the scale of the incident. A determined and well constructed terrorist attack will have been well thought through and the preservation of the lives of the terrorists would not have been a consideration in the planning phases. A response to an incident of this magnitude will need to have been equally well planned and practised. Quarterly reviews of regional threat assessments and regional table top exercises, the results of which should be widely disseminated to any units who might be called upon to respond should become mandatory. This is not merely a question of a paper exercise but one of ensuring that possible problems have been thought through in advance and that all units have contributed to solutions and therefore feel an ownership of the pre-determined actions that they may be called upon to perform.
Unlike other seaways and with the single exception of the Malacca Straits an incident in the sea lanes of the Caribbean would impact upon a large number of sovereign countries located in the archipelago .Over twenty countries are located in close quarters, along the main shipping routes. The jurisdictional issues alone would cripple a response if not agreed in advance.
Contingency planning for rapid response teams and counter action teams should be a priority in the region.
Coastal sweeps and green water patrols prior to shipments transiting areas and on shore surveillance co-operation at pre- identified key way points of the vessel, is another aspect of a pre-transit anti-terrorist regime that should be set in motion by maritime enforcement units in the region. This should be as part of a regional network and on an individual country by country basis.
Establishing relationships with yacht and motor boat clubs and with the fishing and coastal community will ensure that unusual activity could be noted pre –transit and an appropriate response despatched prior to the tanker entering the area.
Escort ships and a heightened alert state should be enforced with the Law enforcement fraternity when methanol, LNG or crude oil tankers are transiting populated areas.
Guard ship duties should be part of the regular operational procedures of the maritime authorities in the region and extra vigilance along coast lines coupled with moving security cordons around vessels must be enforced during their transit.
Special handover radar procedures and joint jurisdictional crisis teams should be established to deal with an incident as a hijacked LNG tanker will affect any number of nations along its route.
Co-ordination, communication and joint tracking coupled with joint training and operational exercises will ensure that shipments are effectively monitored as they transit the Caribbean and any threats in the area communicated to the vessel as it leaves and enters one jurisdiction from another.
Some of these measures are mandated by the ISPS code but implementation of monitoring centres and joint regional responses need planning and a pro-active stance by the maritime policing and naval presence in the region. The Caribbean is one seaway and joint coastal surveillance and information sharing is an absolute requirement in the age that we find ourselves in. These measures should not be considered expensive distractions from the regular anti –narcotics and SAR role of the units in question but should be viewed for what they are: a firm and effective anti-terrorist methodology. Visible deterrence is the ultimate target hardener.
LNG :The Safer Fuel
LNG is natural gas treated for transportation aboard special tankers. Gas cooled to minus 259 †F (minus 162 †C) changes into liquid and shrinks to less than 1/600 of its original volume. Once it arrives at a US terminal, LNG is returned to a gaseous state and fed into existing natural gas pipelines. LNG terminals and tankers present especially attractive targets. The physical effects of an LNG pool fire would be off the scale of anything experienced in the hemisphere and indeed would be potentially surpassing the effects of the world trade centre death toll due to the density of populations along coastlines and harbours in the region. Petrochemical or petroleum plant fires tend to burn out quickly. LNG fires in particular do not stop until all gas is consumed. In the event of an incident LNG will not combust easily. The real danger is in a pool fire where the gas has seeped out of a damaged hull.(similar to USS Cole or Limburg) It is not easy to set fire to LNG .But combustion is not required for a disastrous explosion. All that is required is enough of the gas to settle on the surface of the water for rapid phase transition to occur. When enough LNG is spilled on water at a very fast rate, a Rapid Phase Transition, or RPT, occurs. Heat is transferred from the water to the LNG, causing the LNG to instantly convert from its liquid phase to its gaseous phase. A large amount of energy is released during this rapid transition between phases and a physical explosion can occur. While there is no combustion, this physical explosion can be hazardous to any nearby person or buildings. The intensity of such an explosion and its repercussions has possibly not been fully appreciated by the region.
Anatomy of an Incident
The liquid natural gas fuel carried in sea-going tankers is stored in separate holds which vary in size but can be up to 25,000 cubic meters and capable of storing 10,500 tons of liquefied fuel cargo. All that is required to start the chain of events is an explosion alongside the tanker requiring only that a puncture results in at least one hold. Older LNG vessels can have up to 5 holds. The puncture merely has to be big enough to allow the cargo, which is under pressure to drain onto the surface of the sea. The following approximations are made using figures calculated by James Fay in Model of Spills and Fires from LNG and Oil Tankers, Journal of Hazardous Materials, B96, 171-188, 2003. A hole as small as ten square meters would be sufficient to allow seepage of up to 14,000 cubic meters of LNG which would allow a pool fire area of up to 180,000 square meters with a radius of 340 meters.Surface sea temperatures could also result in Rapid phase transition.. In this instance we are focusing on the Caribbean sea which has water temperatures of between 79.1 F and 83.1 F which varies according to month. LNG is lighter than sea water. The upper part of the LNG fluid that is higher than the sea surface level will first leak out. Because it is lighter than the sea water it will not mix with the sea water but will float on the sea surface. Of most significance is the fact that its diameter spreads rapidly, exposing a large surface area of the LNG to the air above. If the gas pool is ignited, as is likely when the spill is initiated by a chemical explosion, the floating LNG pool will burn vigorously in as little as 5 minutes depending on seepage.
The bigger the fire
Fires that burn thousands of tons of fuel in a few minutes are simply not on a scale that can be dealt with in the Caribbean . In addition there is simply no way of controlling the spread of the pool. If the incident occurs in close proximity to shore or harbour there is no time in which to call for assistance. A vessel anchored just off a harbour, city centre or coastline would, under the right conditions, have spread a fireball two thirds of a mile in just under 3 minutes. Equally damaging Thermal Radiation from the blast would extend outwards up to a mile. Prevailing wind conditions could triple the area affected. Using the calculations of KS Mudan in Thermal radiation hazards from hydrocarbon pool fires, Progress in Energy Combustion Science, 10, 59-80, 1984 we can ascertain roughly where and how casualties will occur. The corresponding energy release and thermal radiation from a blast of the nature outlined above would result in the burnt human skin in 13 seconds . After 40 seconds second degree burns develop. Assuming that more than one tank is holed on the vessel the intensity increases accordingly. Exposure to twice that level is the threshold for fatalities. The range of the thermal radiation from a hole 10 sq meters would exceed 900 acres. Quite simply the bigger the cargo, the bigger the potential seepage and the bigger the fire, the more intense the radiation. The more intense the radiation, the shorter the exposure time needed to cause burns and secondary fires in the vicinity of the blast Of particular note is the fact that wood would combust in under 15 seconds in the first 400 acres surrounding theblast. Majority of the costal villages and port warehousing facilities in the Caribbean are constructed of wood. James Fay concludes with the simple reality that "One cannot exaggerate the thermal intensity of the LNG pool fire. It’s average heat release rate is about twice the average thermal power consumption of all U.S. fossil fuel electric power plants." The only effective means of handling an incident of this nature in the region is to stop it happening.
