Threat Level Unchanged at Algeria Site for A Year to Crisis

Tokyo, Jan. 15 (Jiji Press)--A joint venture for a natural gas complex in Algeria kept its threat level unchanged for a year before the facility was attacked by terrorists on Jan. 16, 2013, leading to the deaths of 10 Japanese in a hostage crisis, a report compiled by a partner company showed Wednesday. "The investigation team has not found that the joint venture's threat level system was actively used as a security risk management tool" during the period leading up to the crisis, the report said. The gas plant at In Amenas, southeastern Algeria, was operated by a joint company of Algerian state-run oil and gas firm Sonatrach, major British oil company BP PLC and Norwegian oil giant Statoil ASA. The plant was built by Japanese plant engineering firm JGC Corp. <1963>, which had employees among the 10. The joint venture had regularly received information on security concerns since 2012, including on the frequent suicide bombings in Algeria, said the report drawn up by Statoil. "Despite the turmoil in the region, the In Amenas joint venture operated on an unchanged threat level from February 2012 until the attack," the report said. "There was not assessed to be any increase in specific threat to In Amenas and the threat level remained constant, at 'low alert level--working as medium threat level.'" This was lower than the alert level applied for most of 2011, the report noted. Existing security procedures were strengthened, but no additional measures were taken. The three oil companies were supposed to decide whether to raise the threat level. Algeria's Sonatrach was in charge of security inside the facility and in contact with the military. JGC was not deeply involved in security matters. JGC explained Sonatrach knew the local situation better and that it was natural for the Japanese firm to follow its lead. JGC, however, did ask Sonatrach to reinforce security before the resumption of plant construction work that was halted by the crisis. After the crisis, JGC boosted the number of workers at its security division and placed the division under the direct control of its president. JGC shifted to focus more on predicting danger and prevent any similar crisis. In September 2013, Statoil released a 78 page-report describing the security situation in detail and suggesting that it had been impossible to predict the crisis. Security inside the facility was based on the assumption that the military would protect the gas complex from terrorist attacks, and overconfidence in the military led to a failure to estimate what would happen if terrorists broke security systems, it said. Thursday is the first anniversary of the crisis. While tighter security controls by Algerian authorities have subdued the activities of radical terrorists, the political climate has deteriorated in neighboring Libya, the suspected hideout of the terrorist group that caused the crisis. END