Brian,

I recently discovered that the Public Relations Vice-President of the Convenience store chain has a 35-year background in the petroleum industry. Since he is willing to address me in a relatively public forum, and is knowledgeable about the subject, I tend to think he will be truthful with me.

Ive thought of at least 20 different questions Id like to ask him, unfortunately, time will be limited, so I must reduce my questions to two or three. Ive narrowed them to:

1) Since so many companies are going to delay/stop operations on the rollover, what will happen to the product/equipment if it is down for more than 20 hours? (Its no coincidence that Explorer is closing down for 20. It is my understanding it becomes toast after 21.)

2 & 3) Where will you be during the rollover - and can I be with you? (I dont really want to be with him, I just want to hear his answer. If he tells me that he will be at work [as opposed to Fiji] I will rest easier Wednesday night.)

Can you think of any questions that would be more important?

-- Laura (LadyLogic@aol.com), November 16, 1999

Answers

Those are good questions, but I get the impression from your post that this will be a quick-fire press conference type event. In that kind of forum, he just won't have the time to really THINK about any in-depth questions, so it's really not fair to expect him to answer a speculative question. In particular, a question containing a statistic that he can't check on the spot (or can plausibly deny having knowledge of) will likely bring a stock phrase or non-commital response.

The other questions are splendid, but unfortunately they are unverifiable because they talk about what WILL happen. If he's planning on fleeing the country, he's hardly going to tell you about it, is he?

Instead, why not ask him what preparations he has ALREADY made in his own home to ensure that his family don't suffer from any "minor short term hiccups or irrational panic buying". If you use anti-prepper wording, he's more likely to stay friendly for longer. If he claims he's made no significant preps, then ask to go and see. Right now. Today. Offer to go home with him that night to "verify that, so that you can let people know that there really IS nothing to worry about."

Above all, try and sound reasonable and helpful, and point out how reassuring it would be if it could be independently verified that those in the know really aren't taking preps. Suggest that a press reporter go and check instead of you.

You never know. Maybe he ISN'T prepping... ;)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 16, 1999.

The core competence of a PR guy is S-P-I-N. How can you expect to get useful technical assessments of engineering issues from a trained liar? Would you base any actions on what such a person says about what they know nothing about?

-- ng (cantprovideemail @none.com), November 16, 1999.

You might ask if he has what problems in the foreign oil producing states would be most disruptive to supplies in the US and which two countries would he track for a general view of industry?

-- squid (Itsdark@down.here), November 16, 1999.

Colin,

Im sorry, I should have provided you with this agenda earlier:

(I apologize for the spacing, I don't have time change it. Additionally, I have removed the names because I think it is the responsible thing to do.)

11:30 Networking, Special Interest Groups, and New members (SIGs: ---Speakers Program, Government, and Healthcare) 1:00 Introductions and usual business In keeping with the policy of the --- , all presentations are generic and do not promote a presenter's or company's products.

1:15 Y2K Readiness of the Oil Industry, presented by ---- , Vice President, ----- Corporation

--- will provide an assessment of the industries readiness for Y2K and speak specifically about Arizona and Maricopa County. Areas to be covered include IT systems, field systems and contingency planning. ---- is Vice President of Public Affairs and Special Projects for -------- Marketing Company which operates through the Circle K, 76, and Exxon brands in Arizona. --- has spent 35 years in virtually all aspects of the petroleum business. Currently, in addition to his normal duties, he is in charge of the Y2K issue as it relates to almost 5000 gasoline and convenience retail outlets nationwide.

2:00 Break

2:15 Celebration 2000, a Phoenix Event, presented by -------, City of Phoenix Police Dept. The topic of the presentation will be a brief review of the highlights of the Phoenix Police Department's Year 2000 Operational Contingency Plan. The presentation will include citywide deployment plans, a brief review of critical systems failure plans, and preparations being made for the City of Phoenix Celebration 2000 downtown event.

-------------- has been with the Phoenix Police Department for 20 years and during that time has enjoyed a wide variety of assignments. For the past five years he has been assigned to supervise the Police Department's full-time bomb squad, to act in the capacity of relief commander of the Department's SWAT team, and to act as emergency planning coordinator for the Department. Some of his most recent projects include the development of a counter-terrorism unit within the department, coordinating the Federal Government's Domestic Terrorism Program, the development of the law enforcement sector of the Metropolitan Medical Response System, and active development of the Phoenix Police Department's Year 2000 Operational Contingency Plan.

3:00 'Head-slappers and High Fives' A "head-slapper" is something unexpected, an "Ah-ha!" or "Oh, no!" experience. We would like this to be a practical "How to" and "How NOT to" session where members bring examples of solutions that are/are not working, either from their own experience or from the media. This will allow us to celebrate everyone's small victories and discuss lessons learned without having to turn them into full-blown presentations.

3:30 Adjourn

>>>then ask to go and see. Right now.Today. Offer to go home with him that night to "verify that, so that you can let people know that there really IS nothing to worry about." <<<

Outstanding idea, Sir! I will do that.

>>> Above all, try and sound reasonable and helpful, and point out how reassuring it would be if it could be independently verified that those in the know really aren't taking preps.<<<

I will take your advice here also. Truth is, I am a reasonable and helpful woman anyway. Furthermore, I am not in the least bit intimidating, and Im sure this man will sense that. If you recall, Ive already told him that I will be asking questions about DDs chat and he thanked me for the heads-up. Im beyond wanting to discuss that with him now, I have more important issues to discuss. Do you think I should e-mail him my questions tonight? Id like to be fair with him.

-- Laura (LadyLogic@aol.com), November 16, 1999.

Laura

I am shocked that you would ask me, my technical background is only what I have learned online reading Y2K.

If I had a question to ask someone in the oil industry it would be;

What would be the effects of an unstable power supply on equipment if there are brown outs. From my understanding brown outs have the potential to do serious harm and has never been addressed from what I have read.

Stopping and starting up plants (more chemical or are refineries included?) has alot of risks also. The Explorer shutdown is the pipeline issue which is different than the plants. One would actually think of it as "idleing" rather than "shutting down" IMHO.

My consern has been natural gas more than oil though, and there is less information on that than even oil. A quote from a May GAO report;

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ai99162.pdf

"Snip

The APGA survey stated that 37 percent of the publicly owned distributors did not provide an expected readiness date for embedded systems and only 23 percent of the respondents expected to be ready in September 1999.

(APGA -publicly owned natural gas distribution companies.)"

The GAO is one of the only sources of information I like to rely on. If they come out with a statement like this then it maybe time to find out how they managed to become compliant in such a short time.

Here are a few snips from the report

Technology Problems and Industrial Chemical Safety

(HTML) Report to the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem

(Vendor reliability)

Snip

Internal Y2K Equipment Audits may miss some devices.

Equipment with embedded microchips can encompass a diversity United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Page 43 of devices; some of, which may not be apparent, even to facility personnel with extensive experience. Mr. Daley stated, Then we brought in a couple of consultants and they were named as specialists in Y2K, and they did inventories. And we found in both plants that we did the pilots in, we found a 10:1 ratio. We found that they identified 10 times as many devices as we had identified. Demonstrating Y2K Compliance by the vendor does not assure compliance in the chemical-manufacturing environment. An examination of the vendors test procedure and retesting data is necessary and prudent. In some cases, vendors are unable to assure compliance for equipment that does not operate according to original design configuration, and after having been subject to customer modifications.

Snip

(and power outages)

Power Outages

No effort was made in this study to assess the potential of power outages from Y2K-related failures. However, potential Y2K-related power outages represent another set of problems for chemical and petroleum facilities. While many chemical and petroleum manufacturing facilities have backup power generators, Y2K failures may include concurrent loss of power, cooling water and other system malfunctions. First, plants without auxiliary power backup systems face a threat to parts of their processes that may not shutdown in a fail-safe mode.

Snip

For some managers of facilities that draw high power loads prudent safety practice may determine that the plant be shut down during critical time periods and restarted at a later date. However, such decisions should not be made without communicating these planned actions with their utilities in order to prevent problems on the power grid. As a further complication, cumulatively, small power consumers can impact on power distribution through the nearly simultaneous shut down of many facilities without coordinating with their utility. Utilities can bring up or shutdown generators as demands vary, but they have trouble responding to unexpected changes in load or demand. Snip End

Hopefully this may help you, the gentleman in question wouldn't happen to run 7-11s ?

Oh I will be at home like normal on new years eve, and on new years day at a party with friends down the road. Beer will be stockpiled :o)

Why would you ask someone where he will be? If he is management then the only place he should be is on the frontlines if there are problems in his business.

Hope this helps. I am sure there are many on the forum (RC, Dog Gone, Downstreamer, Gordon, DD1) that are in the industry (?) plus Robert Cook usually has a good handle on such things could help you.

Best of luck

Brian

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 16, 1999.

Laura,

When is this meeting, and is it open to the public???

Ask if the Water/sewer systems will work!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 16, 1999.

Laura

Never hurts to have more information. This is from a SEC Y2K disclosure from Exxon. If this is public domain then the gentleman should know about the subject matter. If he doesn't he is spinning.

This is the first time frame I have seen in the SEC filings regarding failures. There must be a reason why Exxon did this. It isn't what Kosky is saying.

 EXXON CORP
 

       Notwithstanding the substantive work efforts described above,
       the corporation could potentially experience disruptions to some
       mission critical operations or deliveries to customers as a result
       of Year 2000 issues, particularly in the first few weeks of the
       year 2000. Such disruptions could include impacts from
       potentially non-compliant systems utilized by suppliers,
       customers, government entities

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 16, 1999.

K. Stevens,

I think it is invitation only.

-- Laura (LadyLogic46@aol.com), November 16, 1999.

Brian,

Thank you very much (again). I'm going to go read the EXXON report right now.

-- Laura (LadyLogic@aol.com), November 16, 1999.

Laura,

I would be curious to know if the shutdown is a complete shutdown. If so this could create a problem with viscosity (thickness?) If they have to pump crude from oil wells in the north (Alaska, Dakota's?) in order to pump it doesn't it have to be pliable. Crude with a temperature of, oh 20 degrees, may become like hard stuff (ever see how cold oil like 10-40 weight pours out of a can if its cold). Assuming they have to apply some heating to pump it accross the tundra or even across the fields a couple of hundred yards to a refinery in the lower 48, they will still need power to heat the lines slightly (only supposition). What are the effects of shutting down in the middle of winter? Slammer

-- slammer (billslammer@yahoo.com), November 16, 1999.

Slammer,

See our discussion up top. (Dog Gone, Downsteamer, etc.)

-- Laura (Ladylogic@aol.com), November 16, 1999.