Oil chat

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

I'm presenting the "sanitized" (spelling cleaned up, and people entering and leaving are edited out, etc.) version of a discussion from Bok's chat room session recently ended. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, lil 'ol me included. Comments are sought:

I was expecting something -- more than what happened. But the energy guys took the hint and turned back their clocks.

Now they have the problem of turning them forward.

Then why should we see any problems, if it's THAT easy to workaround?

why bother turning them forward?

six -- because the clocks have to be turned forward at some time -- otherwise the reporting systems get more and more confused. The good thing is that they won't all go crazy at once.

uh-huh. (showing my ignorance again.)

dean i don't buy a word of it

or do you have inside info of some sort?

explain...Lil ol me

One problem that seems to be cropping up right now is the "smart valves." These are valves with embedded processors, some of which keep track of the date. More and more pipes are breaking.

what evidence do you have?

5 yesterday, alone.

are you talking about power?

No evidence, and not likely to get any. But two ammonia plant leaks, 1 other chem plant leak, and 2 others I don't recall the details on.

All related to pipe breakage (or valves remaining open when they should have closed)

are you in oil industry, dean?

Nope

i thought you were talking about power.......

Oh, sorry. I did switch subjects. :) I used the word energy, which, to me, means electric power, oil supplies.

so if what you're saying is true, we should see an explosion (pun intended) of the number of these events over the next few days/weeks?

Electric power should be mostly okay. But there are lots of these smart valves in larger generating plants (cooling, oil or coal slurry feeds).

I assume that the valves are quickly being isolated, now that the problems are coming out.

Something will be done to disable the valves or bypass the problems until the valves can be replaced.

so problem solved/avoided?

The bigger problem is the smart valves that are buried underground in the thousands of miles of pipelines across the countryside.

The location of many of these valves isn't known. Literally!!

wouldn't we have already seen problems with those?

these underground ones are presumeably going bung as we type?

The problem is that when a valve hits and error, it stores the error code (and date/time) in an internal memory table, to be read out remotely. When this table becomes full is when most problems will occur.

how long do they take to fill?

I don't know what these valves will do when the system requesting the data has it's date set back. The error messages may not be sent or cleared from memory.

The length of time it takes to fill depends on the number of errors, and the size of memory. It varies.

right.

I just hope there are none of these valves too close to me (I'm out in the country, and there are several pipelines running within 5 miles of me).

The problem seen so far is that the valve stops working -- they've stuck open. Maybe even the sewage spills were caused by this.

is "stuck open" bad for oil pipelines?

Oil pipelines, from what I've read and chatted, aren't used only for oil.

what else? beer?

Pipelines are sorta like trains. They move diesel fuel, then a cleaning fluid is pushed through, then move gasoline, then some other chemical.

ah.

Different grades of gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc. are sent, too.

Not too much crude oil goes through the long distance pipelines.

Texas, OK, etc. have crude oil pipelines from the big wells to the refineries.

Do you work directly with these systems?

Still, are you pessimistic enough about oil embeddeds to expect crude above 50 by june?

It's not just the oil embeddeds. It's the flow of oil from other countries, and the ability of the refineries to get their systems working with current date.

The problem is that there are lots of controls at every step of oil processing (except for the smallest of oil wells).

Right now, the price of crude oil should be coming down. It's going up, and confounding the oil market watchers.

Dean do you work with these systems? Or are you speculating?

I haven't worked with oil-related embedded systems. I have designed and implemented other types of embeddeds (for ovens, wood drying controls, sheet metal processing, CNC systems way back).

I also know engineers at the largest of the "smart valve" manufacturer, which is about 30 miles east of me.

I turned down a consulting job there (they weren't taking Y2k very seriously).

But -- I don't know about oil except what I've investigated. You might want to look at this oil-related board:

http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets

[end of "recorded" snippet. comments welcome]

-- lil ol me (not@this.time), January 14, 2000

Answers

That was really screwed up. The names were surrounded by < brackets > and got deleted (HTML tags). Grrrrr. Sorry. Well, the above conversation is 3 distinct individuals. You should be able to make some sense of it even without the names.

-- lil ol me (hate@html.sometimes), January 14, 2000.

"lil ol me"...I can fix those names if you can assure me that these people know you intended to post this information here.

Sysop


-- Sysop (Home@TB2K.com), January 14, 2000.


LIlome ...Good job at anonymizing, - NOT! ;)

Yes, sysop, permission was given.

-- wangmeister (?@?.?), January 14, 2000.


Sysop: Yes, I asked permission, and everyone agreed.

-- lil ol me (not@this.time), January 14, 2000.

Sorry. I did a global search and replace on full names. My bad. Sorry if I've "outed" you.

-- lil ol me (i'm@bad.boy), January 14, 2000.


Here's the full version:

Dean> I was expecting something -- more than what happened. But the energy guys took the hint and turned back their clocks.

Dean> Now they have the problem of turning them forward.

wangmeister> Then why should we see any problems, if it's THAT easy to workaround?

wangmeister> why bother turning them forward?

Dean> because the clocks have to be turned forward at some time -- otherwise the reporting systems get more and more confused. The good thing is that they won't all go crazy at once.

wangmeister> uh-huh. (showing my ignorance again.)

lil ol me> dean i don't buy a word of it

lil ol me> or do you have inside info of some sort?

wangmeister> explain...Lil ol me

Dean> One problem that seems to be cropping up right now is the "smart valves." These are valves with embedded processors, some of which keep track of the date. More and more pipes are breaking.

lil ol me> what evidence do you have?

Dean> 5 yesterday, alone.

lil ol me> are you talking about power?

Dean> No evidence, and not likely to get any. But two ammonia plant leaks, 1 other chem plant leak, and 2 others I don't recall the details on.

Dean> All related to pipe breakage (or valves remaining open when they should have closed)

wangmeister> are you in oil industry, dean?

Dean> Nope

lil ol me> i thought you were talking about power.......

Dean> Oh, sorry. I did switch subjects. :) I used the word energy, which, to me, means electric power, oil supplies.

lil ol me> so if what you're saying is true, we should see an explosion (pun intended) of the number of these events over the next few days/weeks?

Dean> Electric power should be mostly okay. But there are lots of these smart valves in larger generating plants (cooling, oil or coal slurry feeds).

Dean> I assume that the valves are quickly being isolated, now that the problems are coming out.

Dean> Something will be done to disable the valves or bypass the problems until the valves can be replaced.

lil ol me> so problem solved/avoided?

Dean> The bigger problem is the smart valves that are buried underground in the thousands of miles of pipelines across the countryside.

Dean> The location of many of these valves isn't known. Literally!!

lil ol me> wouldn't we have already seen problems with those?

wangmeister> these underground ones are presumeably going bung as we type?

Dean> The problem is that when a valve hits and error, it stores the error code (and date/time) in an internal memory table, to be read out remotely. When this table becomes full is when most problems will occur.

wangmeister> how long do they take to fill?

Dean> I don't know what these valves will do when the system requesting the data has it's date set back. The error messages may not be sent or cleared from memory.

Dean> The length of time it takes to fill depends on the number of errors, and the size of memory. It varies.

wangmeister> right.

Dean> I just hope there are none of these valves too close to me (I'm out in the country, and there are several pipelines running within 5 miles of me).

Dean> The problem seen so far is that the valve stops working -- they've stuck open. Maybe even the sewage spills were caused by this.

wangmeister> is "stuck open" bad for oil pipelines?

Dean> Oil pipelines, from what I've read and chatted, aren't used only for oil.

wangmeister> what else? beer?

Dean> Pipelines are sorta like trains. They move diesel fuel, then a cleaning fluid is pushed through, then move gasoline, then some other chemical.

wangmeister> ah.

Dean> Different grades of gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc. are sent, too.

Dean> Not too much crude oil goes through the long distance pipelines.

Dean> Texas, OK, etc. have crude oil pipelines from the big wells to the refineries.

lil ol me> Do you work directly with these systems?

wangmeister> Still, are you pessimistic enough about oil embeddeds to expect crude above 50 by june?

Dean> It's not just the oil embeddeds. It's the flow of oil from other countries, and the ability of the refineries to get their systems working with current date.

Dean> The problem is that there are lots of controls at every step of oil processing (except for the smallest of oil wells).

Dean> Right now, the price of crude oil should be coming down. It's going up, and confounding the oil market watchers.

lil ol me> Dean do you work with these systems? Or are you speculating?

Dean> I haven't worked with oil-related embedded systems. I have designed and implemented other types of embeddeds (for ovens, wood drying controls, sheet metal processing, CNC systems way back).

Dean> I also know engineers at the largest of the "smart valve" manufacturer, which is about 30 miles east of me.

Dean> I turned down a consulting job there (they weren't taking Y2k very seriously).

Dean> But -- I don't know about oil except what I've investigated. You might want to look at this oil-related board:

Dean> http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets

[end of "recorded" snippet. comments welcome]

-- lil ol me (tired@of.waiting), January 14, 2000.


many thanks - interesting new info. here.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 14, 2000.

I wonder how good young programmers, technicians and engineers are at solving "workarounds" because the senior/knowleadgeable guys are coming down with the 'flu' and will not be available just when they are badly needed during the Jan-Feb transition.

Glitches are getting worse, not better. So is the 'flu', or whatever it is.

Take care.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), January 14, 2000.


Thanks for the post. Does this explain the rash of new pipeline projects in he federal registry? ...cause they know the fix is temp? That is my suspicion.

Also, was anything said of larger wells locking shut?

What about the inability to bill when embeddeeds on larger wells are rolled back, due to false volume data? Did they come up with a work around for that?

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 14, 2000.


The pipeline projects in the Federal Registry probably have been on the books for several years. One detailed in NY & PA has been in progress for two years that I know of.

But the flow onitoring systems effectively being disabled is pretty disturbing. I've been around two major pipeline ruptures. We were near enough to a major natural gas line rupture in Elizabeth, New Jersey to hear the blast and see the smoke column.

Four years ago we had a gasoline pipeline burst and with functioning flow sensors over one hundred thousand gallons of gasoline came out of that pipe. The pipeline running downhill didn't help, but it was five miles to the nearest sensor and five miles worth of gas came out.

They got very lucky there was no ignition of all that fuel. The pipe ruptured undernreath a major road and dumb-asses in Binghamton were DRIVING THROUGH standing pools of gasoline. Fools do get lucky, I guess.

I don't want to go through that again. But it looks like there's lots of opportunity for such events to occur. Embeddeds failing in their current state with now indication of failure means that it won't be known that somethings failed until things go "BOOM!".

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 14, 2000.



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