16 NAVY NEWS, FEBRU-
● The Liberian-
registered
tanker Tiara
fi lls up at the Al
Basrah Oil Terminal
Picture: LA(Phot) Chris
Wenham, FRPU Whale
Island
Organised
COMMAND Centre.
from these platforms. concrete crumbling away, fl ame towers are team oversee arguably the largest maritime You do not, of course, want to blow a
Imagine it. The bridge of the Starship
In fact, look up the ‘Billboard Top 10’ of colanders peppered by machine-gun, rifl e security operation on the seven seas from friendly boat out of the water. The marines
Enterprise perhaps. Maybe a darkened
global oil terminals, and you’ll fi nd ABOT and shell fi re, huge chunks are missing those cabins on KAAOT. are trained to shoot in front of offending
compartment fi lled with sailors in anti-
and KAAOT. from steel supports where shells smashed “Six years ago I was out here at vessels initially – a wall of fi re should send
fl ash peering at computer screens.
In short, protecting these platforms through them. Christmas stopping Iraq move oil illegally out the right message to friend or foe. If
You’re probably not picturing a portable
isn’t an Iraqi issue. It’s not even a Gulf The old control tower is but a shell – from these platforms – and my counterpart they keep on coming, well you can guess
cabin perched atop another portable
issue. It’s a global issue. you can peer through its skeleton to see its from the Iraqi Navy was here trying to the rest.
cabin perched atop a rather run-down
And it is the terrorists’ and insurgents’ metal box lift. It sits in the middle of outsmart us,” says the Australian. “I never Practising defending these platforms
concrete and steel structure in the middle
declared intention to destroy them. the platform like the trade centre expected one day to be sitting on one, isn’t easy. When the tankers are alongside,
of nowhere.
They tried in 2004, killing three crew in Hiroshima, a testament to protecting them.” they severely limit your view and your fi eld
But the cloak of steel drawn around
of the USS Firebolt – you will fi nd a man’s inhumanity. And these are diffi cult structures to of fi re (bullets + oil tanker = bad idea). And
the northern Gulf by Allied forces is
memorial to them on the KAAOT – but At the northern tip of the protect. There are machine gun posts as the range of the heavy machine-guns is
fl ourished from here, the KAAOT – the
they failed to damage the platform. terminal there’s a huge hole, scattered along the KAAOT’s 800-metre some 7,000 metres, the area around the
Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal.
And then there are the ‘others’. a gulf where once a holding structure, some up high. There are anti- platforms has to be free of vessels for live
KAAOT has featured manifold in
On the horizon sits the ‘sunken tank held 30,000 litres of oil swimmer nets guarding the huge pipeline fi ring exercises – and in these busy waters
these pages. It is not an oil rig. There is
crane’… an Iraqi crane on an Iraqi barge to be pumped into a waiting which lifts up off the seabed and into the that doesn’t happen too often.
no drilling here. There is no oil beneath its
which sank in Iranian waters in one of this tanker. In May 2006, a welder KAAOT. Iraqi marines scurry up and Yet in spite of these limitations, in spite
rust-encrusted legs.
region’s many confl icts. decided it would be a good idea down the platform’s bouncy walkways (the of the rather spartan conditions aboard,
It is an oil platform, a gigantic fi lling
It now serves as an observation post to sit atop the tank and carry metal has bent and warped over time). the Brits, Aussies and Americans training
station if you like, where oil found in
for the Iranians – they’ve even built out some work. In the resulting And the garrison goes to action stations. the Iraqis are impressed.
mainland Iraq is pumped into tankers to
accommodation on it. explosions, the man vapourised Regularly. Every time a boat – normally a “If you’d looked at these guys six
take to refi neries, mostly in the Gulf, some
Here a bizarre 49th Parallel-esque save his hand, so too a colleague, dhow cutting corners to save fuel months ago, they were wearing track suits
beyond it.
game is played out. The Iranians on the and the 30,000-litre tank. – encroaches inside the 3,000- and trainers. Now they’re fully kitted out.
KAAOT was built by the Brits half a
crane watch the Allies and Iraqis at work Yet despite such scars of metre exclusion zone One of the things you see here is a visible
century ago as an outlet for Iraq’s principal
on KAAOT… and the Allies and Iraqis war, neglect and carelessness, around change,” says Lt Cdr Richard Westoby, a
export.
watch the Iranians watching them. It’s all KAAOT still stands – and it still KAAOT, former Royal Marine who transferred to
Back then tankers were smaller. Much
very Cold War. pumps out oil. It did so before the alarm the RAN.
smaller. The ships fi lling up here can hold
And what do the Iranians stare at the 2003 war. It does so after the sounds. Capt Will Parker RM of the Naval
between 1.2m and 1.8m barrels of oil;
all day? 2003 war. Transition Team adds: “The Iraqis know
tankers using the younger ABOT have a
Outwardly KAAOT looks To ensure it does so safely, what they have to do. They want to work.
capacity upwards of 2.4m barrels.
rickety, battle- scarred. Some securely, Commander Task They know what their responsibilities are.
Such numbers are meaningless to Joe
of the ladders have more rungs Force 158 – guardians of the These platforms are Iraq’s future.”
Public, of course. Let’s spell it out in
missing than attached. Huge northern Arabian Gulf – direct
layman’s terms.
girders have bent a n d their operations, namely
● A Royal Navy RIB waits off KAAOT
One barrel of oil retails for $96 (£48).
twisted, the their ships, from here.
Picture: LA(Phot) Jannine Hartmann
So a KAAOT tanker brimming with oil
decking is This was an
carries goods worth more than $172m
missing, the operation conducted
(£86m).
from warships until
And that’s just one tanker. On our
only a few weeks
fl ight from Bahrain to the tip
ago. Now Cdre
of the Gulf, a good couple
Allan Du Toit
of dozen of these
RAN and his
leviathans could
be seen milling
around, bound to or
013-015_NN_Feb.indd 2 10/1/08 14:51:25
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