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azstarnet.com
Y2K will be OK - if we don't overreact
By Kendra L. Martin
Isaac Asimov's science fiction classic ``Nightfall,' first published in 1941,
is a cautionary lesson. The story unfolds on a planet with six suns, where
darkness descends but once every 2,049 years, the result of a rare solar
eclipse.
When all six suns simultaneously cease to shine (five set while the sixth is
in eclipse), the people go mad. They set raging fires to provide light,
destroying their entire civilization - a horrifying overreaction.
The approaching epochal event, the new millennium and the 21st century,
has the potential in the Y2K computer bug to create an overreaction.
The news media have been drawn in force to explore the potential failure
of computers to adapt to the millennium and the possibility of runs on
gasoline pumps, automatic teller machines and bottled water.
Are we headed for computer chaos or will it be just a bump on Cyber
Boulevard?
I can speak with certainty only about my own industry, oil and natural
gas. But I can hazard an informed guess on the general situation.
Too much is at stake for potential problems to go uncorrected.
Businesses cannot afford to be paralyzed by Y2K.
They risk lost profits, angry customers and lawsuits. Government
agencies and officials who drop the ball would alienate taxpayers and
voters. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry is a case in point.
Oil and gas companies first looked at their operations for Y2K back in
the mid-1990s. They immediately recognized their vulnerability.
Computer technology operates valves and controls on drilling and
production equipment. It manages refinery operations. It regulates the
flow and monitors leaks on pipelines. It steers ships and powers
telecommunications. It also makes it possible to pay by credit card at the
pump.
So companies began systematically checking and testing their computers.
Where problems were detected or suspected, equipment was upgraded
or replaced. Companies also established contingency plans to respond to
possible problems that couldn't be anticipated.
Every sector has prepared, including overseas operations and the oil
tankers that help bring the United States more than half the crude oil it
uses to make gasoline and other petroleum products.
Finally, companies have worked closely with the electric power industry
and other suppliers of critical goods and services that must be ready for
Y2K for the oil and gas industry to be ready.
The most recent survey of the industry's Y2K readiness shows that all oil
and gas companies that responded expect to be prepared by year's end.
In fact, more than nine out of 10 said that all preparations would be
completed at least three months before 2000 arrives.
This is not a guarantee that the U.S. oil and gas industry has 100 percent,
bulletproof protection against all Y2K problems.
But with the industry's extensive preparations, contingency plans and
other backstops, consumers aren't likely to be much inconvenienced by
any problems that do occur.
Even if a foreign supplier of crude oil experiences problems, Americans
have little to worry about. U.S. companies have substantial inventories of
crude oil, the government maintains a strategic crude oil reserve, and a
month's supply is in transit crossing the oceans at any given moment.
Moreover, any interruption in imports from one nation would motivate
other foreign suppliers to bring more of their own oil to market.
Americans have little to fear from Y2K ``but fear itself,' as Franklin D.
Roosevelt would have said.
As long as citizens don't hoard and the government doesn't try to
regulate, we will probably enter the new millennium with only temporary
hitches and glitches.
Kendra L. Martin is Y2K program director for the American
Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C. This article was prepared
for Bridge News. |
