OIL & GAS: EMBEDDED CHIPS Revised 11/12/97
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OIL RIGS: Could shut down North Sea platforms
Major oil companies ring alarm bell... Companies such as Royal Dutch/Shell & British Petroleum said they realize they are sitting on a time bomb & are racing against the clock to check millions of microprocessors. They fear smaller firms have not yet fully grasped the threat to the oil industry.
The oil industry faces a gargantuan task to fight the millennium bug, illustrated by the fact a single offshore oil platform may contain over 10,000 microprocessors. Some are deep below sea level, but all need to be checked ..... To put this into further perspective, there are over a 100 platforms in the North Sea alone.
David Trim of Shell's year 2000 team ... told the conference that a worldwide ''commercial meltdown'' and ''economic hardship'' were real risks if worst came to worst ..... We're talking about something akin to the aftermath of a war."
pathfinder.com@@t3xCtwYA7TSVHHnK/net/latest/RB/1997Oct29/606.html
ABERDEEN, Scotland (Reuters) Reut16:51 10-29-97 (29 Oct 1997 16:45 EST)
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PIPELINES (GAS/OIL): POTENTIAL PROBLEMS
Have not been able to find info on the net. Following is an email which was sent to me.
Problems I suspect with the satellite control over remote sites, along the gas and oil pipelines worldwide. They are sequentially run systems that operate in a date and time driven environment. I discovered this researching a new oil and gas line being built in Australia.
If these words don't raise a big red flag ... there are thousands of check and measuring stations, valves, mixing stations, pig insert locations, pumps ... and the list goes on and on.
All reporting condition, pressure, volume, actions taken and timing via satellite back to central computers. This embedded chip problem is just becoming a known problem. As this is the energy delivery system from the wellhead to the end user, It needs a careful look.
I think one key to searching out the embedded chips is to look at the enviroment they respond in(to) and the pipelines are in a sequential time date enviroment. I will be talking to some industry folks tomorrow myself. I want to know how many fields are subject to the same sequential time date reporting chips. I will coin the word STDC:)
pge.com.au
Here is a map you can navagate to see how many of the remote stations are satellite controlled in a sequential time date environment - #2 is a remote pig launcher and meter station monitored and CONTROLLED from Brisbaine - sure hope the pig launcher is fail safe to the off position it sure could plug things up if it were to be launched at the wrong time. It is a good example of a remote computer station with embedded chips, valves with embedded chips to preform the opening and closing functions in sequence with other remote locations, meters with embedded chips, launchers most likely with embedded chips.
The other stations work at mixing and diluting different gas types so methaine (coal gas) can be used in the mix safely. I can see a lot of reasons to look into this and get the actual facts on each stage and station to see how it will be affected.
I think you can see how this gets multiplied as you enter a multicity system. I will start looking for more in the oil industry, I'm sure there is a lot more. BY: Larry1702@aol.com |
