Try www.bloomberg.com, having a tough time cut/pasting article.

-- Rich (Rluck@aol.com), December 19, 1999

Answers

I recall some Engineer/Programmer about a month ago that outlined this scenario at an oil facility he was consulting at. Does anyone recall that?

Articles like this make you think, I an actually very surprised the article was written.

-- Rich (Rluck@aol.com), December 19, 1999.

Arab Gulf Oil Producers May Not Be Prepared for Millennium Bug, UN Says

Not to worry. The Czar says:

``It would have been nice if they had started a year or two earlier, but we're optimistic there won't be any interruption in oil flow,'' said John Koskinen, chairman of the U.S. President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. ``However, our oil inventories are sufficient to handle any eventuality for a few weeks.''

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 19, 1999.

Linda,

Thanks for that excerpt from the article: ``It would have been nice if they had started a year or two earlier . . ." This, I think, is the most idiotic thing he's ever said. He's "optimistic" despite them starting a year or two too late? Geeeeeeez!!!!!

Bob

-- Bob (bob@bob.com), December 19, 1999.

If anyone has been waiting for that certain proof that the rollover is going to be a disaster, this story is it!!!

Has anyone searched the U.N. site for additional information?

Maybe they have some kind of cool piechart or artwork to explain this visually to people who still don't understand plain English.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 19, 1999.

This in itself is not proof that we're all doomed. It is however a strong indication that crude oil may still be cheap at these levels. I'm thinking Feb and March could touch 30-33 per bbl before it's all said and done. And yes there's plenty of oil in Rotterdam and off Kharg Island, that's not the point. The point is that this little party is gonna make the gulf war shock and 70's crisis look like a picnic if the Arabs have no power for more than a day or two. I can imagine the response in futures now!!! I would be profoundly surprised if we don't lose at least 10-13% of global crude oil supply for at least a month or so. That's 7 million bbls. per day. Now again I'm calling for at least that much refining to go boink as well, so what I'm saying here is that the futures markets are going to be quite roiled for a while. Any way you slice it, our economy is in for some rough going. Unfortunately for us, it's as fragile as it's ever been, perhaps more so. We are in deep shit folks. Keep prepping.

For Educational and Fubar purposes only: Sun, 19 Dec 1999, 1:27pm EST Arab Gulf Oil Producers May Not Be Prepared for Millennium Bug, UN Says By Sean Evers

Arab Gulf Oil Producers May Not Be Prepared for Millennium Bug

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Gulf Arab states responsible for half the world's oil reserves may not be adequately prepared for the year 2000 computer problem, the United Nations and U.S. government officials said.

Computer failure and resulting disruption to production and transportation facilities in the six Arab Gulf states -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain -- could boost oil prices, which have already more than doubled this year.

Governments and companies in the Middle East won't be ready for the date changeover on Jan. 1, 2000, due to a lack of funding to deal with the ``millennium bug'' computer glitch, the United Nations has said in a report. The bug is a theoretical problem that may cause some computers to malfunction if they misread the two-digit date ``OO'' as 1900 instead of 2000. ``It would have been nice if they had started a year or two earlier, but we're optimistic there won't be any interruption in oil flow,'' said John Koskinen, chairman of the U.S. President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. ``However, our oil inventories are sufficient to handle any eventuality for a few weeks.''

The U.S. government set up a reserve in 1975 to provide an emergency supply of oil in the event of a crisis, such as the Arab oil embargo of 1973. It currently holds about 573 million barrels of oil -- equal to two months of imports -- according to the Energy Department. The U.S. has tapped the reserve only once, in 1991, during the Persian Gulf War.

Oil companies doing business in the Gulf and local officials in the region said they are concerned about the lack of progress being made by government-run utilities, such as power and water.

Saudi Arabia Confident

However, Saudi Arabia, responsible for about 10 percent of the world's daily oil supply, said it is confident its computer systems will be ready to recognize the year 2000. ``Our worst case scenario would be to lose power for an extended period of time,'' said Saleh al-Zaid, head of the Y2K preparation team at Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company that exports more than 6 million barrels of oil per day. ``If that happened we would have enough oil stored at export terminals in the kingdom, Rotterdam and the U.S. to meet all our customers' requirements for about eight to nine days,'' he said.

Most of Saudi Arabia's critical oil installations have their own power plants. These include the Abqaiq facility, which can process 6 million barrels a day, as well as export terminals on the Gulf, gateway for 90 percent of its oil exports.

Mexico Ready, Too

Venezuela and Mexico, two other large exporters to the U.S., also said supplies won't be disrupted by computer breakdowns, and guaranteed all deliveries in the first days of 2000. They agreed to make up shortfalls in world output elsewhere if hobbled by the millennium bug.

Other Gulf producers, however, may not be in good shape.

Kuwait, which holds 9.3 percent of known global reserves, said the various components of its oil industry -- production, refining, shipping -- have different timetables for dealing with the computer bug. ``The production side is the most advanced and is finished testing,'' said Mifhari al-Obaid, an assistant managing director at the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. ``In an emergency we would be able to run manually if the data systems stop.''

At least one-third of all nations won't have fully tested and fixed their computers by Jan. 1, despite the expenditure of between $300 billion and $600 billion by the world's companies and governments, according to analysts. ``As far as some of the oil companies in the area, a lot of them have just looked at what we call the front-end IT systems, and have not looked at the embedded systems,'' said Ron Nelson, a Dubai-based Y2K computer consultant.

Hidden Threat

Embedded systems consist of computer chips used outside of computers -- in power-distribution equipment, pipeline pump controls and other devices. ``Everyone considered Y2K as a PC-based problem, when in reality it was much larger,'' he said.

U.S. companies are joining in the fight against time in the Persian Gulf. Exxon Mobil Corp. said it is working with its joint venture operations in Saudi Arabia to prepare for the bug. ``We have organized training workshops and set up different in-house committees to tackle this issue,'' said Curtis Brand, chief executive officer of Mobil Saudi Arabia Inc. ``We are ... comfortable with the progress.''

Saudi Aramco and Exxon Mobil are partners in the SAMREF refinery on the kingdom's west coast, which refines about 350,000 barrels a day of crude oil into gasoline, jet fuel and gasoil, a group of fuels that includes heating oil.

)1999 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Trademarks.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), December 19, 1999.

``As far as some of the oil companies in the area, a lot of them have just looked at what we call the front-end IT systems, and have not looked at the embedded systems,'' said Ron Nelson, a Dubai-based Y2K computer consultant.

Now this statement was a HEADS-UP!

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), December 19, 1999.

got bicycle? Seriously, Thanks, Gordon. You have done a lot to educate us all

-- Nancy (Wellsnl@hotmail.com), December 19, 1999.