Algeria Attack Puts Focus on Worker Security

Security was a constant preoccupation, as it is with other fields in the many politically unstable parts of the world where foreign oil companies take big chances for big gain: Iraq, Nigeria and Libya, to name a few. The Algerian Army escorted the workers anytime they left the sprawling compound, to and from the airport or as they headed to distant wells where they sometimes saw nomads crossing the desert on camels.

Now energy companies’ use of these far-flung outposts staffed by expatriates is being scrutinized as never before. The bloody, four-day hostage siege at the In Amenas facility in eastern Algeria prompted at least one worker who escaped to question whether more could have been done to rebuff the attack. And analysts say the catastrophic failure could change the way the oil industry protects such compounds throughout the region, where Islamist militants who revile the West are active, just as the State Department has had to rethink security after the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack in Algeria has already led oil companies there to evacuate hundreds of workers temporarily and eventually could lead some companies to pull out of especially volatile countries. But analysts said the siege was not likely to fundamentally reshape the industry, which has a long history of making money in countries in the throes of upheaval and even war (including one in Algeria), and where workers with a taste for traveling the world — and the hazard pay they earn — have long put aside fears of kidnapping and death.

“This attack is highlighting in a ghastly way the security concerns around the global energy infrastructure on which the world depends,” the oil historian Daniel Yergin said. “Security has been a very big concern over the last two decades, and security is now an even bigger concern. But that doesn’t mean their work will stop.”

The attack in the desert has opened a rare window on a world few outside the oil industry know: the scores of oil and gas fields around the globe where foreign and local workers mix, sometimes uneasily, in vast compounds ringed by security fencing that are a strange mix of privilege and privation.

Many are in parts of the world where political problems outside the camp walls add to natural hazards: blinding sandstorms, winter cold severe enough to shatter metal and tropical diseases in areas where medical care is spotty at best. To keep their cloistered workers focused, companies often splurge on such amenities as swimming pools in the desert (In Amenas has one), steaks for lunch and air-conditioned gyms.

At some camps, the Japanese companies that specialize in plant construction had their own Japanese-style communal bath, and had their food flown in from Japan. In Amenas had no bath, but the Japanese workers there ate separately from both the locals and other foreigners, with a chef trained in Japanese cuisine catering to them.

“It’s a better way to live than in a hotel, but it’s not home and never will be,” said Pat Campbell, a longtime executive with Superior Energy Services, who has worked in North Africa and the Middle East since the 1960s and was a crucial technician in taming the burning Kuwaiti oil fields after the Persian Gulf war. “You cannot help but chuckle when you are sipping homemade bourbon by the pool, but there you are in the desert.”

The men (and some women) who sign up for assignments at the fields are generally adventurers, people able to put up with, or even thrive on, the lifestyle in the camps. The pay and the fast track to corporate success such postings can lead to does not hurt; industry insiders say that top managers can earn $250,000 or more a year. That can go a long way when food and lodging for half the year (they generally work 28 days on and 28 off) is paid for.

Clifford Krauss reported from Houston and Nederland, Tex., and Stanley Reed from London. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Kulish and Henrik Pryser Libell from Bergen, Norway; Mihai Radu from Bucharest, Romania; Martin Fackler, Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno from Tokyo; Ravi Somaiya from New York; and John F. Burns from London.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/africa/algerian-attack-puts-focus-on-worker-security.html?partner=rss&emc=rss