Trends for Oil and Gas Terrorist Attacks

Although direct terrorist attacks on the oil and gas sector have not occurred in the United States, there are many recorded attacks on the sector in a large number of countries around the world. The statistical analysis and other evaluations of these data provide an important foundation for identifying case events that can be selected for an in-depth evaluation of the role of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) in the disabling and rate of recovery of the oil and gas system. This report analyzes international terrorist attacks using a database from the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) which includes information about terrorist attacks from all over the world affecting all sectors, including oil and gas. The report looks at annual data for the period 1990-2005 with a special emphasis on attacks occurring in countries with the highest number of attacks during this period. Section 1 provides an introduction to the report. Section 2 looks at the number of incidents, including total incidents over time, attacks on the oil and gas sector as a percentage of total terrorist attacks, and incidents over time by geographical region. In Section 3 the number of fatalities associated with the attacks is examined, along with the fatalities associated with attacks on the oil and gas sector as a percentage of all fatalities associated with terrorist attacks. Section 4 looks at injuries associated with the attacks, and the injuries associated with attacks on the oil and gas sector as a percentage of all injuries associated with terrorist attacks. Section 5 provides a brief discussion about the association between injuries and fatalities. Section 6 contains a discussion of the kinds of components attacked. Finally, Section 7 ends with some concluding remarks. Although the terrorist attacks on the oil and gas sector are a relatively small proportion of terrorist attacks overall, the data show that a significant number of attacks have occurred over the period 1990-2005, suggesting that the sector is vulnerable. If terrorist groups feel that carrying out a physical attack within the United States is too difficult they could turn their attention to other vulnerabilities such as SCADA systems.