Word: rig
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...program has already touched many parts of the globe: The radar's prototype was built in the Marshall Islands; its semi-submersible converted oil rig platform was designed in Norway. The two parts were assembled in Texas, its 50,000 tons hoisted onto a ship, and sailed 15,000 miles around the tip of South America (it was too big to use the Panama Canal), arriving in Pearl Harbor in January 2006. Its ultimate destination is the more challenging waters of Adak, a farflung outpost in Alaska's Aleutian island chain, famous for terrible weather and 100-foot waves...
...Whether or not such an exquisite piece of intelligence equipment should be on the open ocean is another question. The upside is mobility; the downside is salt water, wind and waves. Shortly after arriving in Hawaii, the MDA ordered an assessment of the radar's rig, which resulted in a $27-million to-do list before it could be declared operational. Improvements include everything from rethinking the platform's ballast system to installing anti-slip surfaces on its decks. In short, at the time when it was originally supposed to be in service, the vessel...
...fighters have been adopting al-Qaeda tactics at times. The Ogaden National Liberation Front, a Somali rebel group, killed nine Chinese oil workers and 65 Ethiopians at a rig in eastern Ethiopia in April. A diplomat in Nairobi warns of a "third front in the war on terror." The parallels to Iraq, which the U.S. alleged had links to al-Qaeda, only to invade and create them by sowing chaos and anti-U.S. sentiment, are plain. "America's aggression helped us a lot," explains jihadi commander Mohammed Mahmood Ali in Mogadishu. "We got a lot of support from that...
...crowded out, in part because it's hard for them to provide high enough returns to meet the costs of rising rents and salaries. Oil becomes virtually the only game in town, and the benefit to workers is surprisingly limited, with many of the more lucrative jobs - such as rig operator and refinery manager - going to foreign experts. Hence the expat enclaves in oil towns from Port Gentil to Baku. In some cases, unemployment can actually worsen. Fueled by the new spending power of the few, the cost of living also goes up. If the government doesn't share...
...just ExxonMobil. Oil-field-services provider Baker Hughes keeps a monthly tally of how many rigs are active around the world, and the rig count peaked at 6,227 in December 1981. In April of this year it was just 2,836. But ExxonMobil is the most cautious of the lot. Slightly smaller rival Shell spent 25% more on capital and exploration in 2006, and the other oil majors spent more than ExxonMobil relative to their size. The Dallas-based industry leader still reports that its oil and gas reserves are growing. But recent gains have been modest, and most...