Gazprom Rejects Suggestion Of Y2K Gas Crisis
MOSCOW, Mar. 11, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia's Gazprom giant on Wednesday shrugged off suggestions that the "millennium bug" computer problem could trigger an export shutdown and leave parts of Europe short of gas, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Gazprom chief spokesman Gennady Yezhov told the agency that the gas monolith was "bewildered" by comments from a CIA analyst, who said that because of the company's ageing computer system it was a prime target for the year 2000 software glitch.
Gazprom "has practically unraveled the Y2K problem," Yezhov was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying, adding that the company's gas transportation control system had been equipped with up-to-date computers, and new software for data control had been prepared.
CIA official Lawrence Gershwin told a U.S. Senate special committee on the millennium bug that parts of eastern Europe and former Soviet republics could experience gas shortages due to Gazprom's "potential" computer problems.
With its ageing infrastructure, nuclear capability and acute cash shortage, Russia appears more vulnerable than most to the so-called Y2K problem in which computers are seen malfunctioning due to software confusion over the new date.
As a space-saving device, early computer chips only used the last two digits in dates to identify years, a gaffe which means some computers cannot distinguish 2000 from 1900 and could thus fall prey to crippling errors in logic.
But Yezhov said Washington's concern was misplaced.
"Bewilderment arises as to why such concern is shown on the other side of the Atlantic in the United States, which does not receive Russian gas, while no one in Europe expresses such misgivings," Yezhov said. ( (c) 1999 Agence France Presse)
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