Matt Zborowski
Staff Writer
Target: Oil
More than 20 years ago, Kuwait was the site of one of the more gut-wrenching scenes in world history. As the Iraqi army retreated back into Iraq during the waning weeks of the Persian Gulf War, hundreds of oil wells were ignited and destroyed in an effort to throw off US forces and perhaps punish its neighbor for overproduction. Enormous plumes of thick, black smoke slowly ascended from an oil slick roughly the size of the island of Hawaii, visually obscuring what ended up being the largest oil spill in history.
Today, on the other side of Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) controls most of the oil in Syria, where production has plummeted from more than 400,000 b/d during 2008-10 to less than 25,000 b/d in January, estimates the US Energy Information Administration.
These events illustrate how oil has not only become a reason for war, but a strategic target as well. And it's not a tactic exclusive to the Middle East. In fact, the first instance may have occurred in the good ol' U. S. of A.
The Raid on Burning Springs
The US Civil War occurred at the dawn of the industrial age just after the first commercial oil wells were drilled in North America. One of the more precarious regions for both the North and the South was western Virginia, where loyalties were split among its populace and guerilla warfare had taken hold.
In spring of 1863, Confederates moved in on the Union-controlled north-central portion of the region in an effort to cripple the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. When a unit of 1,300 soldiers led by Gen. William "Grumble" Jones marched into Burning Springs-a town named literally for the naturally rising gas from the Little Kanawha, Kanawha, and Big Sandy rivers-it happened upon one of America's first commercial oil works, which included a spring-pole oil well that reached 303 ft, according to records from the American Oil & Gas Historical Society.
In something of an impromptu scorched earth initiative, the soldiers proceeded to torch the thousands of barrels of oil on site, immolating all associated equipment. Boats carrying oil exploded, giving rise to a massive inferno down the Little Kanawha River. Smoke emanating from the river created a scene not unlike that of the Kuwait oil fires in 1991, albeit on a much smaller scale.
A subsequent letter penned by Jones to Gen. Robert E. Lee described the events: "All the oil, the tanks, barrels, engines for pumping, engine-houses, and wagons-in a word, everything used for raising, holding, or sending it off-was burned." On behalf of the Confederacy he remarked that it was a "scene of magnificence that might well carry joy to every patriotic heart."
The burgeoning boom that launched in Burning Springs prior to the war had come to a fiery halt, with production nonexistent at the conclusion of Jones's raid. A month later, however, western Virginia became the Union's state of West Virginia, proving the event was merely a bump in the road for the North on its path to victory.
Securing oil and gas
Much has changed in 150 years, including the world's dependence on hydrocarbons, economic realities, and the flavor of world conflict. Multinational oil companies have production quotas to meet, nations to supply, and consumers and shareholders to satisfy. Those companies simply can't cease operations in the midst of political and social upheaval, a near constant in the oil-rich Middle East.
Third-party security firms are among the few entities to have benefitted from the instability, providing services that include armed guards, risk analysis, and crisis management training for employees. Demand for such firms surged following the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, and remains strong more than a decade later.
Given that threats once unforeseen or seemingly non sequitur are now commonplace, the onus is placed on both oil companies and those security firms to keep pace with the ever-changing tactics of modern warfare. After all, one thing hasn't changed much since Burning Springs: They can't count on government to protect them.
