Word: ras
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...Ras Sudr lies on a dry plain, with the Sinai mountains to the east and, across the Gulf of Suez, Egypt's Red Sea hills barely visible to the west. The town is just 30 miles south of the spot where, according to local tradition, Moses struck the rock and made water gush forth. Instead of striking a rock, Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Ahmed Ezzedin Hilal turned a valve and a jet of black crude spurted across the sand. "God be praised," Hilal said. "I cannot express in words the happiness I feel...
Nile Drink. After the valve-turning ceremony, Hilal led a motorcade to Ras Sudr's tiny terminal, where the 13,500-ton Egyptian tanker Salaam lay in shallow water offshore. An aide handed a folded Egyptian flag to Abdel Moneim Karamany, the governor of Sinai, who kissed it, fixed it to a rope and hoisted it onto a steel platform. A small crowd of Bedouins and a couple of sheiks watched, intoning "Allahu akbar"(God is great). Hilal and Karamany then stepped into a launch to visit the Salaam and congratulate its crew before the tanker sailed...
Like the interim agreement itself, the happy hand-over of Ras Sudr owes much to American help. Experts from several American oil firms, including hard-bitten ex-roughnecks from Texas, had gone to Ras Sudr in October to arrange the turnover on Egypt's behalf. At the signing ceremony, which took place inside a former Israeli compound (a sign on the fence in Hebrew warned of land mines), the Egyptians beamingly approved of the Americans' work. "You have done a great job," said Hilal. "We hope we will see you again in Egypt." Answered Mobil's Cairo...
Apparently sensing that they would eventually have to give up Ras Sudr, the Israelis did almost no maintenance in the eight years they were here. Most of the buildings are without doors or windows. The pipelines have been almost totally destroyed by war or chopped up and run over by heavy equipment...
...there was no evidence of deliberate destruction by the Israelis, and there were even some signs of good will: just before leaving, the Israelis repaired the Ras Sudr mosque. "We can say," summed up Oil Minister Hilal, "that the agreement is being carried out as agreed upon." Next step in carrying out the Sinai accord: on Nov. 30, the Israelis will hand over the much larger oilfields at Abu Rudeis. That transaction is also expected to go smoothly...