Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Oil & Gas Companies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: teevee who wrote (6567)	6/13/1999 2:58:00 AM
From: Kerm Yerman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24921

Teevee / Y2K & Pipelines Talk about being blindsided. You're definitely asking the wrong guy on this subject. I'm not Y2K compliant - I really don't understand it, thus I have no feel on the impact it may have have on industry. Unless someone qualifies themselves, I don't think you will get an answer here. The pipeline companies themselves would have answers to the "if this and if that" type questions. However, I do have a contrary view of this situation if it occurs. I don't see crude prices crashing, in fact -- just the opposite. If a refinery doesn't process crude products, everything would backup to the oilfield. Storage wouldn't increase beyond whatever capacity is available. I think that is what you're saying. In this scenario, there would be a lack of supply versus demand. Prices would initially go up until processing would allow shipments again. There would be a splurge of supply thereafter which would bring prices back down. Have you read a specific article which brought about the question? In regards to natural gas, in my mind -- it is the place to be if we're talking North America and to go further - Canada. Canadian producers will be seeing consistently higher prices never experienced in the past. A growing company in terms of increasing natural gas reserves and production will benefit two-fold. Price + production = significant company growth. However, if we are talking at the international level, it depends on the region. There have been gigantic natural gas discoveries made in recent years where there is limited or no markets for the product.

To: teevee who wrote (6567)	6/13/1999 3:24:00 AM
From: Gulo	Respond to of 24921

Actually, my major client is a refinery of sorts. I know of no actual controls in the entire 70,000 bbl/d facility that fit your scenario. Even those that can be centrally controlled have simple circuits that are not in any way dependent on date. That is, even if the programmable logic controllers were aware of date (many are not), they do not use the date in their control software. The central monitoring systems, of course, do use dates. If something did screw up there, it would make for an exciting hour or two. Another example would be H2S alarms that sound when they think they haven't been maintained since 1900. Neither would shut the plant down. Maybe refineries in the U.S. are different, but I doubt it. Maybe a process/control engineer familiar with other plants could comment. Regards.