Skyrocketing Fuel Prices - Will It Be PetroGate 2000? By Stuart H. Rodman

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Skyrocketing Fuel Prices - Will It Be PetroGate 2000?

By Stuart H. Rodman

www.stuarthrodman.com 1-25-2000

Remember that old expression? If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck its,... well, you know. Recent revelations about the oil and gas industry may be making that old expression especially meaningful for many. Since January 1, 2000 accidents or glitches in the industry may have suddenly nearly tripled in number when compared to the entire year of 1998! Based on a new analysis, unplanned plant shutdowns, fires, and explosions may be occurring now on an exponential curve. No formal explanations have been offered yet for this sudden epidemic of mishaps but many observers had expected to see such problems in an industry widely believed to have been unprepared to face the Y2K computer bug officially declared "squished". And hey, brace for impact! What's suddenly happened to the price of crude oil? Since January 1, 2000 it has skyrocketed to a near ten year high, recently threatening the $30 a barrel levels last seen during the Gulf War. So far there has been no panic at the gas pump but then again most retailers are still selling the relatively cheap gas they bought just a few weeks ago. Wait until they have to price factor in the latest news; the refinery in Venezuela which is the largest supplier of refined crude to the U.S. has broken down unexpectedly and may remain off line until March. How come? They call it an "Act of God"! It might all just be a big ugly coincidence but trend line projections for accident occurrences might be shattering on the desktops of statisticians all around the world as you read this. Consider these numbers, though still perhaps tentative, as reported from other sources by Marcia L. Peters. The data reflects known incidents within the petroleum industry for factory, generating plant, pipeline explosions, and fires as displayed on her website (http://nckodokan.com/charts/crude.html): Summary -

1990 - 3 reports

1991 - 1 report

1992 - 1 report

1993 - 1 report

1994 - 1 report

1995 - 2 reports

1996 - 6 reports

1997 - 5 reports

1998 - 29 reports

1999 - 90 reports

2000 - As of TODAY there have been 64 reports since 1/1/2000!!!!!! Did you think they are planning to call a news conference to tell us that they have been having problems with the automated systems that control these processes because they really are not in fact Y2K compliant? Fat chance. The sudden outbreak of unexplained equipment failures in the oil and gas industry might have nothing to do with Y2K. But even if it does, special Year 2000 laws enacted by Congress, like Public Law 105-271, all but assure that Y2K related disclosures from huge corporations will never see the light of day. Going public to admit a deficiency may defeat that same shield of liability protection that the special interests have lobbied so long and hard to obtain for themselves. With the Year 2000 finally upon us, we might instead expect to be hearing alot more about "swamp gas". Getting to the truth will not be an easy task. The newly enacted federal Year 2000 statutes make information about corporate Y2K disclosures to government agencies "non disclosable", even under the Freedom of Information Act! Does it really matter? Some think we may find ourselves with plenty of time to ponder that question while we wait in long lines to fill our gas tanks later this winter. In the meantime, N.Y. Governor Pataki has called for a federal investigation into rising fuel prices, and several Senators, including the co chairman of the Senate Select Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, Christopher Dodd, have called for a preemptive sale of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Rising demand for heating oil brought on by the severe cold in the Northeast is further complicating the problem and spot shortages of refined products may not be far off. Fire up that freeze dried food and plan to set a spell. Oh yeah! Don't forget that down filled comforter though, whatever the truth, its going to come in handy.

SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE

This Site Served by TheHostPros<<

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), January 27, 2000

Answers

Hi, how are you doing?

These figures may be bogus. I posted them earlier on another thread:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002PGQ

Several people responded including Flint (by email) and questioned the accuracy of those figures due to differences in reporting and use of the web. You can check the earlier thread if you like. Take care.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 27, 2000.


I'm posting this for my colleague Fred Millar.

-- Philip Bogdonoff / Center for Y2K & Society

What Fred said:

Thought I should help out the folks working on this: see http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets.showAddRep lyScreenFromWeb?topicID=317.topic

Oil accidents and y2k reply to Marcia and Jay Fred Millar

In my years of work on issues involving toxic chemical releases, I have never been able to put much stock in accident reporting databases. Notorious problems of under-reporting and lack of quality control have vitiated most -- e.g., in hazardous materials transportation area, as some press accounts have demonstrated. But certainly there are many folks now interested in the current potential connections between y2k and oil industry problems -- an area many of us working full-time on y2k found one of the most alarming of looming risks.

In the interest of credibility, some sources to check/enlist:

1. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board -- I think Dr. Jerry Poje there is looking into potential y2k links with accidents/outages. They probably have the technical capability and the credibility to do trend analysis. The Board is statutorily mandated (Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990) to set up a national chemical accident reporting system by regulation, so they have a keen interest in finding/ensuring good data collection...

2. Marsh and McLennan in Chicago is a risk insurer for major oil companies, etc. and compiles every two years a study called something like "100 Largest Losses" in the petrochemical industry -- not a broad database, but impressive data on huge economic losses due to individual accidents... May be good for illustrative purposes.

3. Earlier reports of very few refinery accidents in past years seemed very incomplete -- my impression is that most refineries have lots of small fires/explosions and a major one on average once a year. Don't know how good the historical data is...

4. The main U.S. EPA database for reporting of chemical spills, the Emergency Response and Notification System, was quietly unplugged at the end of 1999, because it was not y2k-compliant. The ERNS webpage carried no information on this, nor apparently was any public announcement made.

EPA staffers told the Center for Y2k and Society that they are working on a new system, tentatively known as "ERNS 2000", that they hope will be ready at end of January. Until a new system is up, EPA regional offices and emergency responders will have to rely on the reporting system maintained at the National Response Center. First response to chemical spills thus may not be significantly affected by the loss of ERNS, but the 10 EPA Regions will no longer have any ability to modify the data in the accident reports as new information becomes available (e.g., if a spill initially reported as 10 gallons of gasoline turns out to have been 10,000 gallons).

Similarly down from y2k-related problems is the comprehensive and detailed incident "Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance" (HSEES) database maintained by the CDC/ATSDR in Atlanta (part of NIH) from 12 state health departments (also non-y2k specific, although at our urging they suggested that state reporters add y2k-specific info if available.)

The U.S. National Response Center database (for initial incident reports only, not modifiable) is apparently still operating. So immediate emergency response is probably not impacted by the loss of the other two...

5. Dr. Sam Mannan at the Mary Kay O'Connor Center at Texas A&M University, who did the December study of small chemical plants and y2k. His staff is calling out to some oil industry y2k insiders...

6. As one benchmark of studies of accident trends, see U.S. PIRG's "Accidents Will Happen" (1999 version-- uses ERNS data) -- call Paul Orum at 202-544-9568 for some valuable perspective on this and other studies...

Best, Fred Millar, Center for Y2k and Society



-- Philip Bogdonoff (pbogdonoff@y2kcenter.org), January 27, 2000.


Critical quote here is as follows. Folks we may never find out the "TRUTH" in MANY industries:
. With the Year 2000 finally upon us, we might instead expect to be hearing alot more about "swamp gas". Getting to the truth will not be an easy task. The newly enacted federal Year 2000 statutes make information about corporate Y2K disclosures to government agencies "non disclosable", even under the Freedom of Information Act!


To quote the Laugh-In drop in "Ver-r-r-r-r-r-r-y Interesting"

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 27, 2000.

I consider data collected from the web to be inaccurate because it does not reflect any control over the sources. If the numbers were gleaned from ten major sources from the oil industry, and the sources had a completely stable approach to reporting problems for the entire period in question, I would buy the numbers.

The web has more news sources available now than it did in 1990. Any numbers collected now have no relevance to what was collected in 1990 unless you can correct for the number of sites added since then. And who has the math model for that correction?

A similar situation came up with earthquakes. The number of serious earthquakes reported over the last ten years has gone way up. People leaped to the conclusion that that meant there were more earthquakes, etc. Unfortunately, that was a very naive conclusion. The number of test monitoring sites has increased over the years, and many earthquakes that would have been unreported ten years ago are now detected and reported. You have to have controls.

Marcia Peters did the world a disfavor by spreading misinformation. Those who choose to blindly believe it are not thinking it through.

OTOH, we know we have an oil shortage and it's not all OPEC if Norway is having problems. It's not all OPEC when OPEC countries like Venezuela are having problems. It's not OPEC when HEAT USA says we have a natural gas shortage that is causing gas customers to switch to oil suddenly. Something is out of whack.

Today we had (I believe) the 11th Nuke SCRAM of the year and that is alleged to be way above normal. More draw on fossil plants, right? Nukes and gas problems, wow, and it's only January. Plus now the weather has finally turned colder and snow is blocking delivery in the east. Plus truck drivers are paying 2.25 a gallon for diesel in upstate NY. Some of them will not drive if they can't make money on what they deliver. Again, we have a preponderance of factors all piling up. I guess that was part of what we worried about before rollover. Now we may be seeing some of it. When a natural gas problem causes a truck to not deliver oranges then we have what was called a cross-cascading failure on a mini level. And BTW, that truck driver won't be buying so much beer or clothing if he can't make money. The bank won't be seeing his deposits either. His kids won't be spending allowance money on shit food at the 7-11 either.

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), January 27, 2000.


Alright, enough already! Is Hilary playing the oil futures market? Oops. I mean has her blind trust rolled some funds into the oil futures market *without any involvement whatsoever* by Mrs Clinton?

WW ;)

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 27, 2000.



It is my understanding that the refinery in Ven~ contributes one third of the import of gasoline for the east coast only not refined crude. And that its contribution to us of a imports is about 8% of total.

'Course 'could be wrong.

pliney the younger

beware of any system based on longevity;
it preselects a character set inimical to growth and change.


-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound.nw.usa.earth.milkyway.galaxy), January 27, 2000.


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