Some energy sector problems and their possible connection to malfunctioning embedded systems

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The entirety of what follows is a posting by "Y2KObserver" at ezboard regarding some energy sector problems and their possible connection to malfunctioning embedded systems:

http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMessage?topicID=9581.topic

Subject: [EN-OG] Y2k Not Over? Posted By: Y2kObserver (Registered User) Posted At: 8/23/00 11:31:11 pm From the petroleum board.... From LeMetropoleCafe...

The Cafi's long standing very bullish position on the price of crude oil is coming to pass. The action of the market these past couple of weeks has been extraordinarily bullish. There are many reasons (extrapolated by Midas in past weeks and months) to think that the price of oil is going to go higher and stay there for a long time.

Oil is THE most important commodity and effects the price of many others as higher fuel costs add to production costs. It is only a matter of time before the world wakes up and realizes that there is an energy crisis upon us, that it is very inflationary and that gold bullion, coins and share gold investments will be the place to be for the next decade.

Y2K may be BACK as an issue. Heard much about it lately? Probably not, I sure haven't. I was stunned to learn over the weekend that the oil refinery in Shreveport, Louisiana has had 3 oil blow ups this past year. The local residents, naturally very concerned, inquired as to what was going on this year at the refinery. They have been told that the oil explosions have come about as a result of malfunctioning well head chips that have misfired due to Y2K related problems. Seems they lock up at the top of the reactor towers, the oil overflows and splashes into the flame below, causing an explosion.

One has to wonder if there are not many other Y2K well head chip problems that we are not hearing about that is constraining energy supply. Certainly, there are an awful lot of strange oil and gas explosions all over the world. I have heard of several in Kuwait and one in the Virgin Islands. Then, the terrible natural gas explosions this weekend. In addition to one in North Carolina, there was this unexplained nightmare:

Exploded New Mexico natural gas pipeline operated by El Paso

By The Associated Press Carlsbad, N.M.--Aug. 20--A natural gas pipeline explosion that showered flames on a campsite Saturday, killing 10 people, was operated by El Paso Natural Gas Co. The pipeline was 5 to 6 feet underground at the rupture point, said Norma Dunn, spokeswoman for the company, which is owned by El Paso Energy. Natural gas from the pipeline goes to customers in Texas, New Mexico and California. End.

To further check on my Y2K suspicions, I emailed around to Cafi members in the oil business and just received the following back:

"This was a big issue late last year in the oil industry. It was discussed a lot in the industry, but it did not get too much attention elsewhere.

"This was probably the worst compliant area of the industry.

"However, it did not get the media attention it deserves.

"The issue is that most of the pipelines and refineries have automated and/or remote controlled sensors in some critical areas where the oil flows like valves and related controls.

"These automated sensors in their majority have chips which were produced a long time ago and therefore were non-Y2k compliant.

"Oil companies and refineries made an effort to change as many of the sensors as they could, but the problem is/was that many of them were not in the drawing plans and many of them were not recorded anywhere, that is, a good percentage of them, probably as high as 25% were not recorded on the database.

"Also part of the problem is the systemic lack of maintenance and investment due to the previous years of catastrophic low oil prices for the industry.

"So it is indeed very likely that they will continue to cause fires and accidents in refineries and pipelines for some time, although I think they will start to diminish with time.

"For example, the recent pipeline blowout in somewhere in New Mexico could be related to this problem, as it was very strange that in the middle of nowhere the pipe exploded." End.

End of 8-23-2000 posting on ezboard by "Y2K Observer"

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), August 28, 2000

Answers

Thanks Paula. This deserves further investigation.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), August 28, 2000.

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