The Red Sea

Agrari oil tanker

There was some kind of incident involving an oil tanker on the Red Sea recently. It sounds like there was a small explosion. Some people are accusing Yemeni rebels of planting a bomb.

I'm looking at this and I'm wondering what an oil tanker is doing tied to the shore in the Red Sea. Sure, oil tankers pass up and down the Red Sea all the time going between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, but I haven't heard of a great deal of oil production in the area. (I did some checking and while there are a few oil rigs in the Red Sea, there are ten times as many in the Persian Gulf, which is on the other side of the Arabian peninsula.)

Shuqaiq 2 IWPP

It seems that the tanker, rather than taking on a load of oil was delivering a load to a facility that generates electrical power and desalinates water for a couple of other cities in Saudi Arabia - Abha and Jizan.

I just finished reading Treason's Harbor by Patrick O'Brian. The story describes a mission to attack a French fort located along the Red Sea. The description of the conditions they encounter makes it sound like one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. Soaring temperatures with humidity being either very high or very low. When it is very high, it is stifling, but when a desert wind blows in and the humidity suddenly drops, now the wind is sucking the water right out of your body.

Shuqaiq, Abha & Jizan Saudi Arabia
Looking due North

Shuqaiq and Jizan are at sea level on the coast and get the full brunt of the harsh weather. Abha is up in the mountains at an elevation of 7,500 feet, which is a half mile farther up than Denver and the climate is much more pleasant. Not suprisingly, Abha has seven times as many people as Jizan.