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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: oilbabe who wrote (57288)	12/23/1999 9:23:00 AM
From: ldo79	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Help Lost a bookmark for live action. Anyone got one for the old quote.com site? TIA ldo79

To: oilbabe who wrote (57288)	12/24/1999 12:02:00 AM
From: JungleInvestor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

This article on Turkey is one of the scant mentions on this Board of the Y2K risk of oil disruptions. Being a conservative engineer/businessman type, I'm definitely not in the survivalist or alarmist camps. However, after reading and thinking about Y2K, it seems to me that the following scenario could quite possibly occur: The US has spent billions of dollars on correcting the Y2K problem, but many other countries have done next to nothing. Take Iraq for instance. How much money could they have allocated in their budget to addressing Y2K, since their revenues are limited due to the embargo, their oil revenues are dedicated to humanitarian aid, and their highest priority is paying the military? If Iraq has NOT fixed their software and replaced their embedded chips (which they most probably have not), then they will lose such niceties as electricity and telecommunications. This could possibly do more to oust Saddam than all the bombs we have dropped because it helps level the playing field between their military and insurgents! Without electricity and telecommunications, how is Saddam going to pump and transport oil? When Iraq said recently that it was not going to agree to the humanitarian aid agreement and suspended shipping oil – the price of oil rose dramatically. The reason is that demand is outstripping supply and Iraq's 2% or so of worldwide supply makes a big difference. Let's add this 2% now to the production of other oil producing countries that are at high risk of Y2K disruptions (e.g., Russia, Persian Gulf countries, Venezuela, Nigeria, Mexico, etc.) and the impact to a major oil importer such as the U.S. would be very dramatic. The SPR would cushion the effect for a little while, but wouldn't these disruptions last for a long time? If software at power plants needs to be replaced, there would need to be a substantial project to do this for each affected power plant. How many power plants in how many countries would need such projects? Experts would need to go to these countries to manage each project. How many experts would be needed and how many would be available to go to Third World countries. Especially since the dark nights and lack of communications would invite looting, terrorist and guerrilla activities, and lawlessness. Regimes in the Persian Gulf, Russia, Nigeria and other Y2K-affected countries could be brought down. “Smart” utility equipment with embedded chips would need to be replaced. The huge demand would make an instant backlog for this equipment that could not be met for over a year. The economies throughout the world run on oil and lack of oil would bring economic growth to a screeching halt and sink worldwide stock markets. The exception would be stocks of E&P companies that do not have large interests in Y2K-affected countries and oil service companies because there would be a need to increase production as quickly as possible. I'd welcome any comments to this scenario? How possible/probable is this?