Disabled Ship's 24-Hour Stay At LNG Terminal Raises Security Questions

Published on SavannahNow.com (http://savannahnow.com)
Disabled ship's 24-hour stay at LNG terminal raises security questions
By Mary Landers
Created 2007-12-08 00:30
When a crippled container ship was allowed to dock last week at the liquid natural gas facility on Elba Island, officials there said they were being good neighbors to the river community.
Savannah-based security consultant Chuck Watson offers a different take on it.
"I think in principle, it's a bad idea because it's a secure facility," said Watson, a Savannah-based professional hazards planner who generates security analyses on government and private facilities.
At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, the 796-foot MSC Korea lost power as it was leaving Savannah. The Panamanian-flagged vessel dropped anchor and drifted aground just upstream of Elba Island. The closest berth for the disabled ship was the one where it eventually was towed at the Southern LNG's import terminal on the island.
Watson argues it was too risky to allow the ship to dock so near to the storage of up to 7.3 billion cubic feet of liquid natural gas.
It offered a remote but real risk of a deliberate assault, he said.
"They call it a Trojan horse attack," Watson said. "If somebody wanted to do damage, this is what they would do."
U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. David Murk, the captain of the port, oversaw the decision-making around the MSC Korea last week. He was awakened at his home and informed of the mishap shortly after it occurred.
He did not have specific concerns about keeping the LNG facility secure, he said.
"It didn't cross my mind that it was an intentional act," Murk said.
Murk's confidence stemmed from security measures to which the ship already had been subjected. It had passed through the Coast Guard's routine security screening procedures on its inbound journey from Freeport, Bahamas.
It also had been inspected by U.S. Customs officials before it discharged 151 containers. Most of those were empty but others contained cotton towels, granite, frozen fruit, sweeteners and tires. It loaded 254 containers, including some with paper, clay and bulk chemicals, at Garden City terminal and set a course for Norfolk.
Nor did anything about the crew's behavior after the ship lost power arouse Murk's suspicions.
"The pilot was prudent and did what he had to do to keep from going hard aground," he said.
The MSC Korea's proximity to the LNG facility was a coincidence, Murk said, and one that he used in getting the disabled vessel clear of the river as quickly as possible so other ships could pass. The other option was to tow the dead ship back to an available berth at Ocean Terminal - a trip that would have entailed first turning it around, then towing it past downtown Savannah and under the Talmadge Bridge.
"It can be done, and it is done. But from a safety aspect, this was the best situation to put the ship," Murk said.
More traffic
Some port watchers say incidents such as the Korea's breakdown are more likely to occur in the future as the port grows and a new Jasper port is built.
"With busy container traffic, more and more things could happen," said Judy Jennings, a Savannahian active with the Sierra Club. "Anything carrying anything can idle up to a facility and quit running, 'accidentally.' "
No LNG ship was discharging when the MSC Korea lost power, but there could have been. And that raises the risk of a fuel spill or a deliberate ramming of an LNG ship. Elba is one of only four U.S. onshore facilities that import LNG, the chilled and compressed form of methane. It was built in the 1970s, then mothballed until 2001.
Recent expansions nearly doubled its storage capacity, and plans call for it to be doubled again by 2012. But it's situated in an area the LNG industry itself would not recommend now, Jennings said.
"The industry's rulebook for siting says avoid siting where there is other harbor traffic," Jennings said. "Back when they built that thing, Savannah was a sleepy little port."
A busier port doesn't worry Murk, who said the safeguards built into the running of the LNG facility and into the ships themselves, such as their double tanks, reduce the risk to a level he's happy with.
"Increased traffic does not concern me from an LNG perspective," he said.
Elba has been criticized for perceived security and safety breaches in the past, including a March 2006 incident when a surge from a passing vessel pulled the LNG tanker Golar Freeze 15 feet from its dock as it discharged its load. Just three months later, a sailboat cruised into one of the interior slips at the facility and dropped anchor.
Murk says LNG is safe, and the problem is largely perception.
"Unfortunately, outreach and education to the public isn't there yet on all these aspects," he said.
Extra security
When the MSC Korea finally docked at Southern LNG's facility about 12 hours after it lost power, two Coast Guard personnel already had boarded it. The container ship's crew was not allowed to leave the vessel.
Mechanics and others who needed to board were escorted to the ship by tug after they were screened. The facility's security measures, such as surveillance cameras, also were double-checked.
The precautions taken were good ones, Watson said, but ultimately, docking there posed an unnecessary risk.
"It would only take one or two people sneaking out with C-4 (plastic explosive) and blowing open the tanks and you'd have a big mess," he said.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses LNG facilities, expects an accident or attack on Elba could result in a fire that "may cost more than $650 million and include severe damage to shore-side facilities; potential total loss of the LNG vessel and cargo; fatalities; and closure of the port for up to 14 days."
Others, including Watson, suggest FERC's estimate is overly optimistic.
DaWayne Penberthy, the marine operations principal at Southern LNG, said it was important to get the MSC Korea off the river so the port could start operating again, but his company was able to accommodate the ship without compromising the plant's security.
Risk cannot be eliminated, he said.
"There's always some probability, however slim," he said. "There are concerns over containers. There's nothing we can do about it."
Watson said there's one thing they could have done: refuse to allow the ship to dock there.
"Either it's a secure facility and you take reasonable measures to protect it, or you're not protecting it," he said. "I'd argue they did not.
"It's a low-probability scenario. But we know al-Qaida and related groups have talked about LNG and hitting ports. It's not a zero probability."
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