Ten Dangerous Scenarios

Attack a nuclear plant

Cripple the
Transportation System

Destroy the
Fort Peck Dam

Detonate a suitcase bomb

Attack the Alaska pipeline

Contaminate a ventilation system

Cut off power to
a major city

Shoot down
Air Force One

Attack a chemical factory

Destroy a stadium

>> See the entire list <<

Scenario: Blow up Super Tankers

Scenario

Blow up one or more super tankers, either while docked or on the high seas.

Description

Super tankers, like the Alaska pipeline, are inviting terrorist targets for three reasons:

  • Super tankers are an important part of the fuel infrastructure in the U.S. All foreign oil comes into the U.S. in super tankers, and the majority of oil used in the U.S. is foreign. By hitting a super tanker, you are destabilizing the transportation system.
  • Striking a super tanker has a big economic cost because of the value of the ship itself and all the oil it carries.
  • An even larger cost comes from cleaning up the mess. A large oil spill is a very expensive problem.
A large super tanker carries about 1.5 million barrels of oil (42 gallons of oil per barrel). There are only about 440 of these carriers in the world [ref], and many of these are older and unpopular for that reason in American waters. There are 280 million-barrel tankers as well. The number of modern tankers is small enough, and the supply of them tight enough, that hitting several could potentially start to cause supply problems.

By hitting a tanker in port, there is the potential to destroy or damage the unloading system that the tanker is using. Disabling the unloading system could potentially idle one or more refineries as well.

There are several different ways to strike a tanker.

  • One way would be to use a rocket-propelled grenade to penetrate the hull from shore. This would leave a small hole relatively speaking, but at the water line it would be large enough to create a sizable spill.
  • A more effective attack would use the same technique used on the USS Cole. In that attack, approximately 600 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives brought along side the ship in a rubber raft ripped a 40-foor by 40-foot hole in the vessel. (The photo on this page shows that it is not hard to get a rubber raft along-side a tanker)
  • On the high seas, options include ramming, bombing and torpedoes (assuming that it is a terrorist state initiating the attack). If the attack were large enough to sink the tank in a deep ocean trench, it would be unlikely that anyone would ever figure out what happened.
Damage Potential

  • The cost of repairing the damage to the tanker
  • The cost of the lost oil
  • The cost of cleaning up the spilled oil
  • If the attack occurs in a busy shipping channel, the economic loss of impeding traffic in the channel during the explosion and cleanup
  • The cost of repairing the unloading system damage
  • Any potential economic loss to the refineries that the tanker supplied.
When you look at it that way, you can see that striking a tanker is a very effective way to use 500 pounds of explosives.

Potential Solutions

As mentioned in other oil scenarios, eliminating our dependence on oil (by switching to a different energy infrastructure) would decrease our vulnerability to attack like this significantly.

The coast guard has already increased patrols in major ports. It is unlikely, however, that the coast guard could detect a night attack involving an inflatable boat. That would involve a dedicated group of people standing watch on or near super tankers in each port who are searching constantly with night vision equipment. If the terrorists were to attack underwater using SCUBA equipment like Navy SEALs do, then detection is more difficult. Underwater SONAR scanning systems could be used to protect the ships in a relatively automated way.

Protecting super tankers on the open ocean would involve naval escorts.

It is likely that by beefing up watch crews, shooting on sight any vessel approaching a super tanker and adding a SONAR system to guard against underwater attacks, super tankers could be made secure at port. Naval escorts at sea would be added after the first tanker sank at sea for any unknown reason.

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