FBI Practices Rescue of Oil Reserves

Reuters Thursday , October 26, 2000 ; Page A06

BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 25 BB More than 300 FBI agents from several states are testing their skills in a simulated extremist attack on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) this week, but the timing of the exercise is not related to the violence in the Middle East, federal authorities said today.

"The exercise has been scheduled for months, long before things were popping in the Middle East," Special Agent John Rook said. "It was just coincidence," he said of the routine regional exercise that began Monday and continues until Thursday.

Escalating violence between Palestinians and Israelis and the apparent suicide bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port have been making headlines this month, while the recent release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has focused attention on the SPR.

Charles Mathews III, special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI division, said the agency's Crisis Management Unit, located at Quantico, conducts field exercises every three years in each region to train agents in the latest techniques.

Rook said other federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy, which controls the four sites in the SPR, are participating in the four-day training program with agents from Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama.

The SPR was authorized by Congress in 1975 after the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo crimped the flow of imported oil to the United States and sent prices skyrocketing.

Operated by the Department of Energy, the 570 million barrels of crude oil in the SPR are contained in salt domes or caverns 2,000 to 4,000 feet below ground in two sites in Louisiana--at Bayou Choctaw near Baton Rouge and West Hackberry near Lake Charles--and two in Texas--Bryan Mound near Freeport and Big Hill near Winnie. The oil is estimated to be worth $16 billion.

The isolated fenced sites, marked by huge pipes and valves, are protected by DOE personnel. When a release is ordered, oil companies purchase the oil outright or pledge to return a like amount to the reserve.

The first release from the SPR was ordered by President George Bush as part of an international effort to counter the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. A second release was ordered this fall by President Clinton to bolster heating oil reserves in the northeastern United States.

The goal of the FBI training exercise is to free hostages, arrest guerrillas and prepare for their successful prosecution, officials said.

The FBI Crisis Management Unit was activated in Louisiana in December when rioting Cuban prisoners took several jailers hostage for five days in St. Martinville, La. The inmates were being held for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The hostages were released unharmed.

B) 2000 The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15272-2000Oct25?language=printer

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 26, 2000