Valdez tanker port shut down

Anchorage Daily News ^ | January 1, 2004 | By ZAZ HOLLANDER and WESLEY LOY

[Dog]

Valdez tanker port shut down SECURITY: Coast Guard abruptly closes terminal, orders tankers to leave area.

A Coast Guard spokesman would only say that the order was part of a "further extension of prudent maritime security measures."

Air Force fighter jets, meanwhile, have been flying patrols around Valdez in recent days, and federal authorities have placed restrictions on private planes in a 25-mile radius around the town, home to the sprawling marine terminal at the end of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

[Dog]

This was just mentioned by a terrorism expert on Fox...

[Dog]

fyi..

[Peach]

I was just going to ping you to this; hadn't noticed you had posted it.

They are definitely probing, looking for a soft spot.

[Species8472]

Take my word, this is real.

[Dog]

Soft targets Peach...they will want to hit the soft targets.

[Dog]

I wanted your opinion on this....saved me from pinging you..

Happy New Year!

[EggsAckley]

Arrggghh.

[RightWhale]

What could be done about a small prop-plane at Valdez? Maybe it could be shot down without collateral damage, but odds are some fisherman would get holed and he would have a lot of friends in Fairbanks.

[Peach]

One of these days they will succeed; in the interim, I'd say we're doing a fine job. It's tough on the LEO's who are working overtime under such stress.

[Rebelbase]

Just lovely. Look for an instant 20 cents/gallon increase in gasoline tommorow.

[Dog]

I'm slipping I missed this one..

[Cicero]

Valdez was mentioned several days ago as a possible target, not long after the Orange Alert was announced. Also there was discussion of ships as possible targets, and talk about terrorists taking underwater training but with no concern for learning about decompression. Who knows where this came from.

[Rebelbase]

Perhaps this one got away to fight another day: IRAQI SUBMARINE PROWLING LAKE MICHIGAN

[kayak]

Praying!

[Peach]

I love your tagline. I pray for the president and our beloved troops each day; without them we would be lost.

[LasVegasMac]

Didn't I read that most of that gas goes overseas?

Your right, though.

At least 0.20$/gal.

LVM

[leadpenny]

There goes the price of oil. What time do the Asian Oil Markets open?

[Species8472]

Happy New year!

Flew in from east coast yesterday.

Security is tight at ANC

[JustPiper]

Also posted at Daily Thread:

All the Terror info you could ask for

[FairOpinion]

PING

There were some articles earlier threats there too.

[HairOfTheDog]

Coast Guard Valdez ping...

[Rebelbase]

Valdez Webcam

[HairOfTheDog]

A wicked cold and gorgeous day up there!

[Flyer]

A wicked cold and gorgeous day up there!

"Wicked cold" and "Gorgeous" do not go together, according to my Texas Stylebook.

[knak]

is that it's new name

[Semper911]

Take my word, this is real.

Would you be able to expand somewhat on that?

Brief, vague generalities are accepted.

[Lazamataz]

Arrggghh.

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, the sun's out. It beats "wicked cold and stormy as hell"!

[Eva]

I mentioned it yesterday, several times and no one seemed to take notice. The tankers have been ordered out to sea, out of the range of small planes. The port must be re-opened tomorrow to avoid refineries on the west coast running out of oil.

[Flyer]

I'll take cloudy and 75° on January 1st.

http://www.uswx.com/us/wx/TX/77489/

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Wonder if any of the eight suspects on last night's BA flight to L.A. were supposed to make their way up the coast.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Braincloud. I meant LAX Air France flights of Christmas Eve.

[e_engineer]

Several soft looking spots at Valdez.

[Ichneumon]

The tankers have been ordered out to sea, out of the range of small planes. The port must be re-opened tomorrow to avoid refineries on the west coast running out of oil.

Amazing. It's obvious that they wouldn't disrupt a major operation like this based on just "possible" threats, so there's got to be some *very* specific intel on an imminent terrorist operation.

[Eva]

All the operators know is that they were told that there had been a credible threat against an oil tanker in the port. It's hard to say what is deemed credible, less than a month after 9/11 they had a bomb threat against a tanker at a dock in WA, that was called into a radio station. It turned out to be a stupid environmentalist that was mad about the pipeline explosion in Bellingham.

[MindBender26]

Leaking crude set afire by terrs would be real bad!

Even worse? Detonate an LNG (Liquid natural Gas) ship in NY, Baltinore or San Fran harbor. Would make Hiroshima look like a wet match by comparison.

[FReepaholic]

What's to keep them from hitting the Alaska Pipeline? Hundreds of miles long and virtually unprotected. (at least I haven't heard of military patrols along the pipeline)

[flamefront]

OK, take that Japan, now how about eating some cattle, huh?

[TaxRelief]

It would be an ELF operation, not Al-Qaida, IMHO.

[RayChuang88]

Detonating an LNG tanker in a major harbor may not have the effect of the Hiroshima bomb, but it would definitely be just as destructure as the infamous Texas City, TX port explosion caused by a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate exploding in 1947--it would be akin to a 4 kT nuclear warhead going off. There'll be a lot of concussion-effect blast damage and blown-out windows nearby. :-(

[Looking for Diogenes]

That's because 18 big storage tanks at the Valdez port can hold a combined 9.2 million barrels of oil. Daily production from the North Slope averages 1 million barrels per day.
Heatwole would not say how many days the shutdown could last before North Slope production would have to be scaled back or stopped.
"We're OK right now," he said Wednesday afternoon.

I understand that if the pipeline is shutoff for long the oil begins to congeal, particularly in mid-winter, and it is a major problem to get it reheated and flowing again. Let's hope they clear their security hold soon.

[LayoutGuru2]

Did you happen to catch posts 271 and/or 272 to the globalislamicmedia Yahoo group? I was browsing the messages earlier this evening and there was definitely a link for message 271, but it was no longer valid when I clicked on it. Message 273 was posted about two hours ago, but 271 and 272 do not exist.

[Coop]

Valdez tanker port shut down

Take my word, this is real.

I believe you.

[sawyer]

But wicked good is a real Maine word!!!!!!

[sawyer]

That is a funny statement as my husband worked at pump 1 for 10 years,

[Looking for Diogenes]

I wasn't meaning to be funny. Can you share what your husband knows? Is there any problem with restarting the pipeline after an extended shutdown?

[redhead]

"Leaking crude set afire by terrs would be real bad!"

What would be even worse would be a direct hit on either tank farm. Millions upon millions of barrels of light sweet crude, up like a torch.