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To: Richard Axtell
Quick, stealthy attacks by small shoulder launched missile wielding terrorist units on poorly protected oil wells, ocean drilling platforms, tankers, pipelines, refineries, oil tank farms, and even gas stations could drive the price of oil into the stratosphere, in a matter of days!

No it couldn't. It would bump the price up a buck or two, max, but oil production and distribution systems are so numerous and spread out over the globe so much that a band of fugitives like Bin Laden's goons wouldn't be able to put any noticeable dent in it.

10 posted on 02/19/2003 12:50:20 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon
" No it couldn't. It would bump the price up a buck or two, max, but oil production and distribution systems are so numerous and spread out over the globe so much that a band of fugitives like Bin Laden's goons wouldn't be able to put any noticeable dent in it.

Today's oil price is $37 a barrel, according to Drudge. How much higher can the price per barrel go before it begins to have an marked negative effect on the world economy? Al Qaida is purported to have cells in 60+ countries. Certainly any attack on world oil production would have a short term effect, but would that effect be enough for Bin Laden to try it, given his desperate straits? As I mentioned in my opinion piece, I am not arguing so much that this would actually work, but that Bin Laden might just be disposed to make such a suicidal and certainly destructive attack on the basis for so much of the world economy. The speculated about attacks on Saudi oil refineries would be an indication of such a fatalistic strategy, if they do occur.

17 posted on 02/19/2003 1:14:28 PM PST by Richard Axtell
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