Thai oil refineries seen fully Y2K compliant

BANGKOK, April 1 (Reuters) - Most Thai oil refineries are dealing with the Year 2000 computer bug and are expected to be fully millennium compliant by the end of the second quarter, industry sources said on Thursday. Testing is in the final stages and refinery operations are unlikely to be interrupted, they told Reuters. Officials at Thai Oil, the country's biggest refinery with a capacity of 220,000 barrels per day (bpd), said the debt problem the company was facing would not affect the process of converting to Year 2000-compliant systems. 'Thai Oil began addressing the issue as early as May 1997. We are now about 75 percent complete, and will be compliant by June,' said Kornkrit Suksangium, head of Information Technology at the refiner. The cost of making the refinery Y2K safe was estimated at 125 million baht ($3.3 million), officials said. Thailand has five oil refineries and one condensate splitter with a combined capacity of 825,000 bpd. Most refineries surveyed by Reuters said their distribution control, which is one of the most critical refinery components, had been made compliant. Refineries followed a similar methodology, starting with an awareness programme, followed by inventory checking to evaluate the systems and components of the refinery. The next step was a business impact assessment digest in which the refineries look at the progress of the compliance by parties with which they interact such as suppliers and vendors. The final stage, which most Thai refineries are now in, is the remediation process which requires the refineries to take all the components and systems that are not compliant and make them compliant by putting in new software or hardware. Bangchak Petroleum Plc < >BCP.BK>, which runs a 120,000 bpd refinery, said most of its systems were now compliant and the full process was expected to be completed by June or July at the latest. John Etherington, Y2K project manager at Star Petroleum Refining Co (SPRC), said the company's 130,000 bpd refinery would also be fully Y2K compliant by June or July. The refinery is 64 percent owned by Caltex < >CHV.N> < >TX.N>. Etherington put the bill of converting Star to Year 2000-compliant systems at $3.5 million. 'The testing will not interrupt operations. We are fortunate that the refinery was shut down for maintenance in November. We were able to do some testing on key components during that time,' he said. He said another major refinery -- Shell's < >RD.AS> < >SHEL.L> 145,000 bpd Rayong Refining Co -- was also in an advanced stage in the process. Etherington is also responsible for the Y2K programme in Rayong at this stage as Caltex's and Shell's Thai refineries are expected to be integrated in the next few months. 'Hopefully, (Star and Rayong) will be fully compliant around the same time. And both companies will have a joint operation on a contingency plan for Y2K,' he said. ($=37.5 baht) REUTERS

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), April 01, 1999

Answers

Ya got to love that word expected!

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), April 01, 1999.

'Thai Oil began addressing the issue as early as May 1997. We are now about 75 percent complete, and will be compliant by June,'

If they began that early, I'm surprised they are only 75% complete - but "still"expect to finish by June this year. The report, in general, is a good sign, but the specifics of the schedule vs percent complete are behind what I'd feel comfortable with.

This is another proof - it is easy to solve the Y2K problem: just start early, spend lots of money in the right places, then have enough time to test everything (note that these guys felt they "were fortunate" to have a shutdown last Nov to test programs inside of the plant).

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 01, 1999.

Yep...looks like Thailand has "broken the back" of the y2k bug all right...sure am glad I sold all my provisions and bought more Amazon.com stock. Thanks for all the good advice Norm , Y2K Pro, Paul Davis, and Mutha!

-- a (a@a.a), April 01, 1999.

Doesn't it give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know that Thai oil will be okay! It should reduce the price of gas at the pumps by, .000001 cents.

No faith here!

BW

-- Bob Walton (waltonb@kdsi.net), April 01, 1999.