This one just appeared from my own industry. I shudder when I see crap like this being fed to people who don't know any better to start with. For example if I were to tell you that WTI was an 13 API gravity crude with 2.3% sulfur most of you wouldn't know the difference. My point here is that they can lie quite nicely to you without your knowing it. WTI is a light sweet crude, the specs I gave you were for a heavy sour crude, much different. Anyway, don't believe everything you read, here or anywhere these days. My comments in (Parentheses)

For educational and anti-disninformation purposes only: FYI - from OPIS Alerts ***Y2K DISRUPTIONS SHOULD BE MINIMAL, ANALYST SAYS Any Y2K-related disruptions in oil supply - from the wellhead to the gas pump - are likely to be short-lived and are more likely to stem from prudent operational measures than from Y2K noncompliance, one industry analyst predicts. (Opening salvo, designed to calm one and all. Admitting there will be disruptions to supply very softly)

"The likelihood that we'll have glitches is extraordinarily high. The likelihood that we'll have disasters is much lower. . . . And there is the possibility that there'll be no visible impact. We've fixed most of what is mission critical," Cheryl Trench, president of Allegro Energy, told those attending the OPIS 1999 National Supply Summit, held Oct. 21 and 22 in Phoenix, Ariz. (We'll only have glitches, and everyone knows they can't hurt anyone, just a little old glitch is all. Tell that to the three children that burned to death in Bellingham Wa from a "glitch" which caused a pipe to burst at a week section. This week the story said "we may never know what happened in the control room that day....workers were performing an upgrade to software....fuck you and your pithy attitude toward glitches Cheryl)

As for crude supplies, most assume U.S. producers to be Y2K compliant but may harbor some concerns about overseas production in Nigeria, Angola and other developing countries. Trench noted that U.S. and European firms handle much of that foreign production and already are accustomed to less-than-ideal operating conditions. "The infrastructures in many foreign countries are already unreliable, and the producers there have had to be independent. . . . They've had to have their own power, their own telecommunications and so forth," Trench said, adding that U.S. and European firms that have rendered their domestic systems Y2K compliant are likely to do the same for their foreign operations. (Ok, here's a fallacy. It's allready bad over there so a catastrophe can't make it worse. Then how come Shell Nigeria shut in 100 mbd per day on Friday for one month, how come platforms get stormed with spear carriers on a regular basis? Cheryl isn't just naive, she's naive and stupid.)

A tightening of U.S. distillate imports would likely hinge on reduced Russian gas oil exports - causing bids to spike in Europe - as well as significant Y2K problems in two of the United States' major distillate suppliers, Canada and Venezuela. (This WILL happen. Count on it. I'll be publishing a Russian snapshot this monday here and it will leave you with little doubt that Russia is FUBAR.)

"That, all together, could light a significant fire under the distillate market. For a lot of reasons, though, I dont think this is the most plausible scenario," Trench said. (Don't knock her to much, after all our industry, via API has been recieving briefings and guideance from the CIA regularly. We all know what straight shooters those guys are)

As for U.S. products distribution, the Colonial Pipeline plans a shutdown of its entire 5,300-mile system at the end of the year to make sure no Y2K glitches crop up. The pipeline will be taken offline for about eight hours beginning at 6:30 p.m. EST on Dec. 31 and should reopen by 2:30 a.m. Jan. 1. A Colonial spokesman has said that even though the pipeline's computer system is Y2K ready, it depends on outside electrical power and communications, and Colonial wants to make sure everything runs smoothly heading into the new millennium. (Thus far I have heard that every major products pipeline is doing this for the New Year. The shutdowns range from 4 hours to 8. This is also going to be the case for vessel movements as well, no tankers unloading, no barges moving etc. One hell of a quiet new years. This is being done for the sole reason that they (pipelines) are unwilling to risk a Bellingham type scenario. Odds are that some interruptions will occur and so the safest route is to pull the plug yourself in advance. This event is ABSOLUTELY UNPRECEDENTED.)

Trench said such interruptions represent inefficiencies inherent in the supply system but by no means represent a failure of the system. And while the inability of utilities to guarantee service injects some uncertainty into the situation, Trench noted that utilities "don't give you a guarantee of service on any given day." (Yes, but for the most part, they operate consistently. Power outages cost pipelines money and can cost real money if they last to long, patently understated drivel) The chances of some refinery units malfunctioning? Good, Trench said, noting that such snafus will have the same temporary impact on market that other outages do. A scenario in which several refineries are forced to halt operations because of Y2K glitches? Not likely, Trench said. (Ok, so some units are going to malfunction. She's sure of that. Which ones? Doesn't matter it will be temporary. This assumption is based on absolutely zero fact. Nada. I'll bet she's never even donned Nomex to go into a plant. I'll bet she's never had Alky Plant training where you learn about all the things that can kill you in seconds, Benzene, H2S etc. God, what an idiot.)

Then there are concerns surrounding a run on gasoline and distillates in late December should consumers decide to "top off" in preparation of possible supply disruptions. Trench said limited distribution resources would simply make it impossible for consumers to "top off" on some products, such as home heating oil. Trench estimated that heating oil distributors in the Northeast would be facing a 25-percent increase in drops if they tried to schedule for the last week in December the drops they usually would make during the first week of January. But driver and truck capacity for such an endeavor is simply lacking. Trench added that widespread "topping off" on the part of motorists would swamp the distribution system as well. (As I said before, this is true, the tertiary distribution simply can't handle the volumes at all. We,the industry expect some serious drama at the end of the year) Still, oil firms are bracing for extra fill-ups. The American Petroleum Institute reports that while a 30-day supply of gasoline is normally available, oil firms are planning an extra seven-day supply of fuel shipments to handle expected increased demand. (Again, the seven days quote. This woman simply took Ron Quiggens statement and repeated it. No basis in fact. Dumbest thing said about Y2K to date. In some areas of the country if supply is shut for more than 8 hours you're fucked. I repeat, fucked. Tanks go dry, and stations close. It's that simple. No gas today.)

Furthermore, the U.S. Energy Department will be monitoring any disruptions to energy supplies worldwide as 2000 approaches, Secretary Bill Richardson said Friday. Richardson said the department would staff its existing emergency operations center around the clock between Dec. 28 and the first several days of January to collect information on the electricity, oil and gas industries. (Well that should make us all feel quite snug then right? Old Bill, "I love the Chinese" Richardson of the US Energy Department will be on the watch. You can all go back to sleep now.) Brad Addington, baddington@opisnet.com

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999

Answers

Please don't email baddington. Parenthetical comments are mine and mine alone. Don't fault OPIS, these guys are simply shills for the industry who survive on crumbs. They do as their told by the big boys and no less.

Unfortunately, they are repeating fallacies and flawed logic.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999.

Gordon,

Do you have a link for the original newsrelease, please?

-- Deb (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), October 30, 1999.

Informative post. The only oil information up here is that BP's purchase of ARCO is good for Alaska (God Save the Queen!), and that the housing market for expensive houses (>400K) will not collapse, even with all the anticipated layoffs of the ARCO 'xecs.

Interestingly, a buddy who works on software projects on the North Slope for BP (with the polar bears) thinks this whole Y2K thing is an IT consultant scam, and laughs off the embedded system problem.

-- Nelson Isada (isada@alaska.net), October 30, 1999.

Gordon, thanks! We can assume that most of the Y2K information from most industries is like this--PR releases. I was sickened last night watching the NBC Nightly News coverage of the IRS computer problems. Did I say "coverage"? I don't think so. No examination of the implications. "Everything will be okay." Oh, all right. What the hell has happened here? Does anyone know why we have become so STUPID?

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 30, 1999.

Gordon...

West Texas Intermediate, 43 API, Little or no sulfur content. Drilled for it, found it (occasionally), and sold it (for over $30 per barrel). This was the good ole days in the 80s in Abilene, TX. Miss it a lot!

-- Truth (at@the.ready), October 30, 1999.

Gecko,

Bud fox here, I have been thinking about purchasing an old Tanker truck. (not a trailer) but one of those 2800 gallon home heating oil trucks. filling it with gasoline and paying to have it parked on a local jobber lot. That is how sure I am that we aint gonna see no $1.40 gallon in jan.

what do you think.

-- D.B. (dciinc@aol.com), October 30, 1999.

oops! Sorry about the autoplay.

-- The Mysterious Midi Man (mysterious@no.mail), October 30, 1999.

Some months ago I had read an article about Colonial Pipeline's pair of pipes from TX to NY: 35 major pumping stations using electricity from 26 different power companies, IIRC. What, me worry? :-)

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 30, 1999.

Make that 73 mainline pumping stations.

Colonial Pipeline TX to NY

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 30, 1999.

Dear Bud With that kind of plan, girls like Darian will be throwing themselves at you left and right.

Interesting that you should mention that plan. The state DEMA (a subset of FEMA) told a gasoline major that they were planning to commandeer tanker trucks as a contingency plan to do just that. They were going to fill them with distillate and parkem in lots adjacent to the 40 (80k dollar) generators they have purchased for Y2K. Thier plan was to use the trucks for storage onsite and to hook up the gens to 'em. The only part they hadn't thought through was the connection from the trucks. They don't exactly have pump handles or crinds on em. Duh. But that's when I became a GI bigtime. Scared me silly to think that these guys were preparing for that type of prep when my own industry was currently whislting through the graveyard singing Cumbaya.

Deb, sorry no link. OPIS is an email service. I got this from a buddy of mine that attended the conference in Phx. It's legit. Try searching Yahoo news maybe it's been reported their. Can't imagine they'd pass up an opportunity to parrot an idiot like Cheryl.

Also heard through the vine that Kinder Morgan has installed many diesel and gas powered generation at most or all of thier pump stations to be able to pump without electricity. Pretty f-ing smart if you ask me. Simply drain some off the line and keep it moving. They'll be able to keep moving it as long as someone at either end can make it or take it. Good for them.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999.

No.

I've been there and I know it is made of green cheese.

-- Elton John (rocketman@blasted.off), October 30, 1999.

Gecco: "If I told you the moon was made of oil would you believe me?"

No, I woudn't. And I don't believe the rest of your nonsense either, to wit:

"We'll only have glitches, and everyone knows they can't hurt anyone, just a little old glitch is all. Tell that to the three children that burned to death in Bellingham Wa from a "glitch" which caused a pipe to burst at a week section. This week the story said "we may never know what happened in the control room that day....workers were performing an upgrade to software....[expletive]you and your pithy attitude toward glitches Cheryl"

Claiming that the "glitch" CAUSED the pipe to burst is an outright lie. The pipe burst due to a problem with the pipe, there was nothing computer related to the actual failure. The SCADA system that monitored the gas flow malfunctioned, and this could have perhaps provided earlier detection and stopping of the flow. There's no way that a computer system should be used as a "safety function" without a backup, since computers fail on occassion, and I doubt that this SCADA was intended to be a safety device - we just don't know the technical details of this delivery system to conclude exactly HOW this system was designed and what the safety devices are. If this company relied on a single SCADA computer to detect leaks, thats a real big no-no, and we can be sure that information will come out in lawsuits. But one thing is clear, the pipe burst was NOT caused by the SCADA glitch.

Another thing Gekko, your language to Cheryl is unacceptable. You need to have your mouth washed out with soap, and you need to learn that just becuase someone disagrees with you, that doesn't give you the right to cuss them out in a childish manner. Would you do that face to face? I doubt it, but here, you are so brave. Grow up.

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), October 30, 1999.

FF,

Whatever Gordon may imagine about the nature of the "glitch" which caused the pipe to burst, he made no statement asserting that it was a SCADA, or any other, computer glitch. Nor did he make any statement asserting that the "glitch" was not the reported gouge in the pipe in combination with the pressure of the contents of the pipe.

So, it would seem that the "lie", which your post seems to be attempting to rebut, is one initiated by that post.

Otherwise, I concur some of the words Gordon chose to express his disapprobation seem inappropriate.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 30, 1999.

Meanwhile, some folks just might get the impression that some computers, somewhere in Renton, just might have played a contributing role to the pressure of the contents of the pipe when it burst.

Company's command center runs 400-mile-long pipeline

From the Seattle Times site posted at 11:17 p.m. PDT; Saturday, June 12, 1999

Company's command center runs 400-mile-long pipeline

by Jack Broom

Seattle Times staff reporter

RENTON - A computer system acting too slowly was the first hint at a command center here of the tragedy that would hit 100 miles north and involve three deaths, a river of gasoline and a sky-high tower of flames and smoke.

"This is the heartbeat of the pipeline," Ron Brentson said yesterday, facing a curved panel of 10 display screens lit with green, yellow and purple digits at the Olympic Pipe Line headquarters.

Driving the display panels are computers that receive and examine 4,000 new bits of data every five seconds, 24 hours a day.

The controls in this one-story building south of Interstate 405 run the pumps, valves, sensors and other equipment along 400 miles of pipeline from Bellingham to Portland, said Brentson, products-movement supervisor for the company.

At various times, the pipeline will carry gasoline, jet fuel or diesel fuel, with each product pushed through the system right after another.

A 16-inch-diameter pipe carries petroleum products from refineries at Cherry Point and Ferndale, Whatcom County. In the Mount Vernon area, it is joined by a 20-inch line from the Equilon Enterprises refinery at Anacortes.

Heading south, the pipelines deliver much of the petroleum-based fuels used in the Puget Sound area, including all the aviation fuel at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The lines run through the company headquarters site at Renton and continue south to customers as far away as Vancouver, Wash., and Portland.

A spur pipeline runs north from Renton to Seattle's Harbor Island.

On Thursday afternoon, about an hour and a half before the explosion at Bellingham, a controller in Renton began the routine steps of entering commands to shut off the flow of gasoline to a customer in South King County and start the flow to a distribution facility on Harbor Island.

"He noticed the computer was slow, not responding to his commands at a normal rate," Brentson said. The controller asked technicians in an adjacent computer room if they could explain it.

Then an alarm on one screen indicated a pump in Woodinville had failed to start on command, adding to the controller's concern.

"At about that time, the computer system stopped - just seized up and quit," Brentson said. A backup system, developed for just such problems, had also gone out of service.

What technicians discovered later was that earlier in the day, as information for maintenance programs was added to the computers, a flaw in the program caused the data to eat up much more space than it should. In short, the company's computers - both its main and backup systems - crashed.

When that happens, Brentson said, devices along the pipeline automatically shut it down, halting the flow of fuel into the system. Valves and pumps are commanded according to a preset plan intended to minimize the chances of exactly what was about to take place.

Investigators are likely to study whether any flaw in the automatic-shutdown procedure may have caused or contributed to the leak.

(snip to end)

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 30, 1999.

Jerry, its pretty clear that Gecko was referring to a software glitch by his reference to it in the very next sentence.

Thanks for the additional info on the pipeline explosion. As you say, "some folks just might get the impression that some computers, somewhere in Renton, just might have played a contributing role to the pressure of the contents of the pipe when it burst." And indeed, it may turn out that it did CONTRIBUTE to the explosion, but it is almost a certainty that it did not cause it. And the evidence is not in on what exactly the computer contribution was...I suggest we wait on the facts.

The following information should not be overlooked:

"What technicians discovered later was that earlier in the day, as information for maintenance programs was added to the computers, a flaw in the program caused the data to eat up much more space than it should. In short, the company's computers - both its main and backup systems - crashed. "

"When that happens, Brentson said, devices along the pipeline automatically shut it down, halting the flow of fuel into the system. Valves and pumps are commanded according to a preset plan intended to minimize the chances of exactly what was about to take place."

Translated, the system was intended to be fail-safe upon loss of the computer. This is typical practice. Please note that DEVICES were stated as shutting the system down, not the computer control system (I have read that it was a SCADA in other reports).

The question of whether the system shut down properly as designed (by other system devices, not the computer), had a pressure spike due to an improper shutdown, etc., are all valid technical questions that hopefully the investigation will answer.

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), October 30, 1999.

FF,

"Jerry, its pretty clear that Gecko was referring to a software glitch by his reference to it in the very next sentence."

In the very same sentence, i.e. the one before the next sentence, he referred to: "a "glitch" which caused a pipe to burst at a week section" (in this context, it seems clear that "week" was a misspelling of "weak").

It would seem, therefore, that if one were to decide to infer something that he did not explicitly state, and were so to infer based on contiguity of what he did state, one would be led more to the reference in the same sentence, to the weak section of the pipe, than to the reference in the subsequent sentence, to software.

In any case, while the news reports do not provide sufficient information to support an unequivocal conclusion, they do not support the ruling out of consideration that the bursting of the pipe may have resulted from the combination of 1. a gouge in the pipe from previous work on a water pipe in the vicinity, and 2. the kinetic energy of the gasoline meeting a closing valve (the valve closing resulting from the failure of both computers), and that kinetic energy being converted to a momentary, but substantial, pressure surge.

But, speculation is easy; we may never know.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 31, 1999.

Shutting down the pipeline for eight hours... Hmmm...

If the ground is cold enough, will the oil in the pipeline stay fluid enough to pump? (Cold spells have been known to occur in late December.)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), October 31, 1999.

Tom,

IMHO, the refined products (e.g. gasoline, deisel) would remain sufficiently fluid. Also, I would guess that underground pipelines would have been installed below the frost line. As for above ground pipelines carrying crude (e.g. at least parts of the Alaska pipeline are above ground), I do not know. Also, I do not know if the Alaska pipeline will be among those that will intentionally be stopped for several hours.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), October 31, 1999.