Venezuela chooses fix on failure?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Year 2000 Efforts by Latin Govts.

[snip]

VENEZUELA:

Its oil-based economy suffering from decline in petroleum prices, this country of 23 million expects serious Y2K-related failures. Government planners have given up on trying to fix many computer systems and intend to have 15,000 engineers at the ready on Jan. 1, 2000 - along with National Guard and army - to resolve problems as they arise and keep order, says Alejandro Bermudez, deputy national Y2K coordinator.

Most private companies also way behind schedule, having completed about 10 percent-20 percent of work on Year 2000 problems, Bermudez says.

[end]

More great news.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), April 21, 1999

Answers

This is a serious problem for the pollyannas.

Here is a whole government of a country that is of vital importance to the U.S. saying flat out that they expect "serious Y2K-related failures".

They started late, they realize they cannot fix every line of code or embedded system and they understand the prospects for chaos that results from disruptions caused by Y2k failures. So, "15,000 engineers at the ready on Jan. 1, 2000 - along with National Guard and army - to resolve problems as they arise and keep order".

This is only one country the U.S. depends on as a trading partner. Do you actually feel that your life will be unaffected by their problems? Or do you think they'll have the problems fixed in a few days that they couldn't fix in a few months/years?

I'm out the door to buy more supplies.

Mike ============================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), April 21, 1999.


"15,000 engineers at the ready"? Where will they come from? Are they all twiddling their collective thumbs in the meantime?

Curiouser and curiouser...

-- regular (zzz@z.z), April 21, 1999.


Did I read somewhere that 40% of our imported oil comes from Venezuela, or was that some bad dream I had?

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 21, 1999.

OG... looks like we had the same bad dream : )

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), April 21, 1999.

Old Git

Believe it was 40% of our oil is imported - think 14% of that 40% is from Venzuala. That amounts to over 5% of our oil supply. Too much to be comfortable with if Saudi - on the #3 list is also down. In '70 oil crunch we were only down about 3% (? - correct if wrong). Besides, you have to figure in the oil tankers not being compliant as well as the docks and the refineries as well, as long as the power stays up.... hmmm

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), April 21, 1999.



I remember the figure of 17% of total oil imports coming from Venezuela, and that most of that had to be crude oil (so less of an impact if Venezuela's refineries are not in operation).

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

Okay - so that's their impact on the US (us).

What about their impact the REST of their customers?

Just as we aren't the only ones they sell to, losing (or greatly reducing) Venezula's oil will have greater secondary impact on the world's economy at large. For example, if they export a lot to France - just as an example - then if they reduce production - heating, power, and gasoline in France become scarce, and France stops importing from us. OUR businesses exporting to France get hurt, and OUR neighbors go out of work.......

The 1973 oil shortages were caused by deliberate political throttling of the pumps - the pumps, ships, and refineries themselves were fine. Next year - even if the countries "want to" pump oil, they CAN'T....so the loss of oil in the market can't be "magically" restored if the processes are incorrectly remediated, or are not remediated at all, or are only partially remediated - which may be the most dangerous of all.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), April 22, 1999.


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