[ENERGY] For newbies on Y2k - Repost of some older posts
'Bradley K. Sherman <bks@netcom.com> wrote in article
<bksEt3zK0.1An@netcom.com>...
> In article <355EF410.480CCC3C@idir.net>, ET <gearsXOUT@idir.net> wrote:
> >electricity, oil production and refining.
>
> If the former is okay the latter will take care of itself.
No.
You are making an unsupported assertion.
Please provide references to facts that support this erroneous assertion.
Information has been presented here that refutes what you have said.
You may have a short memory:
www5.yahoo.com
[snip]
Wednesday October 29 4:51 PM EST
Millennium Computer Bug Could Shut N.Sea Platforms
By Hans De Jongh
ABERDEEN, Scotland (Reuters) - Major oil companies today rang the alarm
bell, warning the so-called millennium computer bug could paralyze the
offshore industry in the North Sea -- one of the world's biggest oil
production areas.
In a worst case scenario, oil platforms would be forced to shut down just
over two years from now simply because automated systems fail to recognize
the year 2000, industry experts told a conference here.
The problem stems from short cuts taken by computer programmers in the
past. To save memory space, they abbreviated dates to their last two
digits, so that 1999 becomes 99. But unfortunately, computers will read
2000 as a meaningless 00 and may crash at the turn of the millennium.
Companies such as Royal Dutch/Shell and British Petroleum said they realize
they are sitting on a time bomb and are racing against the clock to check
millions of microprocessors. But, they fear smaller firms have not yet
fully grasped the threat to the oil industry.
At the "Project 2000 in Oil and Gas" conference, industry suppliers and
service providers were warned that time is running out and urged to act
soon to prevent major upheaval.
"Stop talking about it, but do it," said Ian Smailes, automation project
engineer at Total Oil Marine.
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.
A taste of what might happen if computer systems fail to recognize a date
came from New Zealand last year. There an aluminum smelter ground to a halt
for several months because its production system could not deal with a leap
year, said David Trim of Shell's year 2000 team.
He 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," Trim said.
The total costs of getting rid of the millennium bug in Britain have been
estimated at 31 billion pounds, while it might be $1.5 trillion for the
world as whole.
But Trim said these could be small sums compared with the far bigger
investments needed to prop up economies if the problem was not addressed
now.
[end snip]
computerweekly.co.uk
[snip]
Energy industry must act fast to fix millennium bug
Results issued by the Energy Industry Special Interest Group have suggested
a significant number of control systems will fail come the millennium. The
survey, posted by a representative of oil firm Texaco in the US on a year
2000 newsgroup run by Peter de Jager, concentrates on inventory and
assessment at four Alcoa steel-making plants, a North Sea oil platform, and
BP's refinery at Grangemouth, Scotland.
According to the results:
50% of control systems are at risk at the Alcoa plants;
1,200 systems have a 12% failure rate at North Sea Expro,
operated by Shell and Exxon; and
of 94 systems at Grangemouth, 74 have been assessed, with
no supplier found for the other 20. Three systems are expected
to fail, with a possibility of two causing a shutdown.
A spokesman for BP at Grangemouth said the plant, which is used by all
three of BP's businesses - oil, chemicals and exploration - had volunteered
to undertake a pilot study on year 2000 on behalf of the rest of the
company. The study, on one part of the refinery as well as petrochemicals,
complements a "first pass" on inventory at the rest of the refinery, the
spokesman said.
BP expects to spend up to $100m (œ61m) in solving its date bug problems,
the company said. US year 2000 expert Leon Kappelman said the control
system test reflected "just the tip of the iceberg".
[snip]
On the following server, April articles have been replaced with May
articles, so the link is no longer valid
gulfpub.com
[snip]
April 1998 Vol. 219 No. 4
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will the millennium bug give your operations the flu?
Don't take the head-in-the-sand approach toward potential computer
strangling of production operations. Time-contingent process controllers
must be evaluated for year 2000 date stamp limitations and their
implications for safety, the environment and operations
..
PROCESS CONTROLLER CONCERNS
Unlike the software of a marketing system, the embedded logic on a silicon
chip is entombed deep in the system and not easily ascertained. Any given
Distributed Control System (DCS) or Process Logic Controller (PLC) computer
board has many chips, and their interdependencies on each other, and on
other system components, make them difficult to analyze and repair.
Methods for analyzing this equipment are only now emerging. Compliance
information coming from manufacturers has been sketchy and sometimes
inaccurate. In some cases, the chips are no longer made. In others, the
controller is manufactured in such a way that the entire unit must be
replaced. Upgraded chips and new controllers also would have to be tested
to ensure that their insertion will not impact drilling and production
processes negatively. Some studies suggest that there may not be enough
manufacturing capacity to just replace all affected chips in less than two
years.
Few organizations have recognized the full potential for possible failure
in embedded systems. Moreover, the supply of talent qualified to identify
and correct these problems is being consumed quickly by other year 2000
projects. The longer that production managers wait, the less the likelihood
that they will be able to affect the outcome pragmatically.
It is estimated that the average oil and gas firm, starting today, can
expect to remediate less than 30% of the overall potential failure points
in the production environment. This reality shifts the focus of the
solution away from trying to fix the problem, to planning strategies that
would minimize potential damage and mitigate potential safety hazards.
..
On a Friday night less than two years from now, a tsunami will build in the
Pacific and roll westward through all major hydrocarbon producing fields
before reaching Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. We know the exact date, not to mention
the hour, minute and second. We do not know its size. As with all tidal
waves, it is safer to take precautions and move out to sea, where its
arrival may not even be noticed. Disaster strikes those who are unprepared
and caught
near shore. There is little time left to mobilize, so to speak, and move
the world's huge oil and gas fleet to the safety of the sea.
[end snip]
... MORE TO FOLLOW
___
Subject:
- Oil Platform Problems
Date:
17 May 1998 13:33:59 EDT
From:
"Harlan Smith" <hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com>
Organization:
Paperless
Newsgroups:
comp.software.year-2000
References:
1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 |
