Gary North has posted Platts Oilgram Price Report of Nov. 22, 1999. Go to: www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/6946

One nice thing about Gary North is he does not get bent out of shape if you quote him or use his postings. This report of Platts' explains what the President and Department of Energy is preparing to do in case oil imports are impaired and the time frame that is required to replace lost oil. You will read that the oil reserve replacement is small when compared to the amount we use.

My "professional" assessment and "professional" diagnosis/language is: "We are in the dumper."

-- Anonymous, December 03, 1999

Answers

Marcella,

IMHO the strategic petroleum reserve is a lot of hot air. Joe and Jane Public will never see an ounce of that stuff, if they can in fact pump it out in any quantity anyway. Look at what is being said here. On the one hand the public is told that there are no major infrastructure problems, but, in case you were worrying about getting your weekly gasoline, the government is "standing ready" to pony up a bunch of that reserve for you. Sure. Right. Baloney! The military will get first grabs on it. Then the oil fired electric utilities who are needed to keep the grid going in case they make it through Y2k. I added that last part to keep us on topic. Actually, it may never make it past the military grab.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 1999

gordon,

i remember reading somewhere, this was last year before the koskinen pr campaign, that the 'pecking order' for available fuel was the feds, then the state level, then the ems, and then and then...

guess who was the low man on the totem pole?

-- Anonymous, December 03, 1999

I'm no expert, but I heard.....that the federal govt. has claims of having a 60 day strategic oil reserve supply. Unfortunately, this is unrefined oil. Our oil refineries are in terrible physical condition going into the rollover (Y2K or not). In reality, we have only a 3 day supply, nationally, of refined oil on hand at any one time. This info came from a free-lance oil industry trouble-shooter at a Y2K chat site. I don't know if this is true or not, but it doesn't it make sense that a reserve is simply that, a reserve, and would not be refined until a decision is made as to what end product was wanted. If the refineries themselves are not compliant then what hope would there be of getting the raw material refined?

-- Anonymous, December 04, 1999

Gordon, Marianne, Others, when I think oil I think electricity. I have said this so much I guess I assume everyone associates it with me. I appreciate that Rick has allowed my posts of oil=electricity to remain posted. Oil products and electricity are linked so closely that one cannot exist without the other.

Sometime last year I researched info. about our oil reserves and found the official chain - in case of an emergency FEMA takes control of the distribution and oil products go first to the military, then the federal government, then state governments, then the public. If there is enough of an emergency for FEMA to take control then one can be sure the public would have drops of gasoline if any at all. Gas for the public is last on my list of concerns. If we lose electricity due to loss of oil, people, especially the young and old, will freeze to death if they don't die of thirst first. You know this is possible even if we don't talk about it. We don't want to think these thoughts. Well, time has run out and embedded systems problems have raised their ugly heads again. The recent posts on this forum about embedded systems are sobering in the extreme. I had thought that if oil was the only major problem the country might make it without major disruptiions until the middle or end of January. Not so. According to the latest posts from reliable sources there will be embedded systems failures and they will happen Dec. 31 - Jan. 1.

I believe this is our reality and we must face it and deal with it in the best way we can. As of today I am a 9 on the disaster scale.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 1999

yes marcella... i should have remembered that it was you -- right around the time you came up with that great 'connect the dots' analogy.

i am truly worried with the current data coming out of koskinens office... it is as though they *just* decided to start filtering some of the *real* issues into the public record now that we have less than a month till rollover.

are we to believe that a giant lightbulb just went on in their collective heads... are they positioning themselves for the utterly inane and hardly defendable stance that the 'technical' guru's misled them?

did that memo snyder posted from kosky's office come out before or after gary north posted that a ceo from a reputable tech firm was prepared to take the position that we are in deep trouble regarding the embedded systems issue?

'they' are politicians... they are *NOT* going to take the heat for this if they can help it; they will attempt to deflect it elsewhere.

they really subscribe to the quote, i believe that it was barnum from the barnum and bailey circus who coined it, "never overestimate the intelligence of the american public"... or words to that effect.

another that is bandied about in political circles inside that beltway refers to the 'short memories' of the american public... i think that they are about to find out that they are *dead* wrong this time.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 1999