27-10draft

Security Jobs
so you want to work in ... oil and gas
Main picture: wall art,
central London. Below:
A disused oil ring in the
Cromarty Firth, off the
east coast of Scotland.
And where we meet the
oil sector - at the petrol
pumps
Photos by Mark Rowe
52
Complex
in a lawless world
Our series on sectors of security - to
introduce them as possible career
choices - continues with the oil and
gas sector. It may be largely out of
sight - no nearer than Aberdeen and
the North Sea - but it’s the bedrock
of our world.
Just as Britain never seems to
fight wars in temperate places
- the Falkland Islands, Iraq and
Afghanistan - so oil and gas never
seems to be extracted from easy to
reach parts of the world. Angola;
off the west African coast; Arabia;
Kazakhstan; Algeria. Quite apart from
the climate, sometimes those places
are, to use the jargon, ‘complex
environments’ - without the roads,
comforts or rule of law that western
businesses take for granted.
Flow
It’s a long road from the thick black
stuff - upstream, to use the oil and
gas sector phrase - to the refinery, and
then downstream, to the product that
comes out of the pumps, that every
car and van driver takes for granted.
Not only are there assets to protect
- the oil workers, the pipelines, the
ports and the product itself - but the
OCTOBER 2017 PROFESSIONAL SECURITY
flow must be maintained. Guardforces
may run into four figures, and where
you have such numbers, you run the
risk of a labour dispute, which can
hold the company to ransom. A strike,
then, goes on the risk register. As in
other industries, different parts of an
oil and gas firm may have different
views as to what the biggest risks are.
Algerian attack
The armed terrorist assault on the
In Amenas gas field in Algeria
in January 2013 left 40 dead (of
ten nationalities), including five
employees of the Scandinavian
firm Statoil (12 were saved and
evacuated). About 800 people were on
the site when terrorists attacked and
took hostages. A retired Norwegian
Lieutenant General, Torgeir Hagen,
led the Statoil investigation into
the event. He said: “The terror
attack against In Amenas was an
unprecedented attack. It clearly
demonstrates that also companies like
Statoil today face serious security
threats.” The investigators found that
security failed; the site had relied on
the Algerian military for protection;
and the military were not able to
detect or prevent the attackers. As
for ‘lessons learned’, the company’s
chief executive Helge Lund spoke of
improvements and ‘increased focus’
and ‘a clearer security culture across
the company’. As in other industries,
armed attacks are the most extreme
risk. Little things matter too, such
as taxis. When you get out of the
airport in Kazakhstan, which taxi
do you take? The yellow one with
a green roof; otherwise you will be
swindled. Security has to be alive to
the risk of sabotage; take a pipeline.
A pebble inserted in the right place
may stop the whole operation, and
require repair. Installers may be
behind the sabotage; not out of
malice, but simply to keep themselves
in well-paid work in a land with
otherwise bleak prospects. Hence the
wise security department will brief
on what taxis to look for; and check
pipeline machinery for pebbles. Or,
in a lawless place such as the Congo,
western employees may simply be
in the way; Security’s job then is to
know the local politics and when to
evacuate. One oil veteran recalls that
during political conflict in Kinshasa,
his firm had an office near the prime
minister’s. The security department
would not let anyone stay in it; which
was as well, because after fighting
‘you could stand outside the building
and you could look through it, and
there was the frame; everything else
was blown’. Just as the security
department of an oil and gas firm has
to understand the business - what its
risks are, and the need for safety, and
brand reputation. As Statoil said after
In Amenas, accidents are preventable;
security threats, including cyber, may
be out of any company’s control.
Neighbour from hell
Even if you have nothing to do
with oil and gas, you ought not to
overlook them, in your business
continuity planning, if a refinery or
other installation is next door; for oil
and gas, if it goes wrong, can be the
‘neighbour from hell’. And once a
site is up and running, it’s 24-hours,
except for a stop for four hours on a
Sunday for maintenance. Likewise
EMEA security managers may live
away from home half the year, and
return only to drop off one suitcase
and pick up another. p
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