Some of you have asked about the latest on the Oil Imports status. I started to post this the other day and got sidetracked. I'm not sure how this will come out format wise as I'm not versed at html conversions to forum pages...

Here's the latest from US Senate's select committee on Y2K on risks to foreign oil exporters to USA.

I have no way of knowing how fresh or stale this assessment is. I note that the % of US mkt share differs substantially from actual DOE figures, so perhaps this information is based upon last year. You will note that I picked this up from the IEA website.

http://www.iea.org/ieay2k/newlinks/imports.htm

Country %of US imports Y2K Status in Risk of disruption months behind US

Venezuela 16.2% 12 to 18 months High Canada 15.5% 0-3 months Low Saudi Arabia 14.4% 12 to 18 months High Mexico 12.9% 12 months Medium Nigeria 7.3% 12 to 18 months High Angola 4.4% unknown ? Columbia 3.0% 12 to 18 months High Algeria 2.9% unknown ? Kuwait 2.9% 12 to 18 months High Virgin Islands 2.9% unknown ? Norway 2.3% 12 months Medium Iraq 2.2% unknown ? Gabon 2.2% unknown ? UK 2.0% 0 to 3 months Low Eduador .9% 12 to 18 months High Argentina .9% 12 to 18 months High All Others 7.5% unknown ?

Taken from the US Senate report page 32 of the Utilities section. I've not been able to establish a date on this from the IEA website and I don't do PDF files. I suspect that this data is from Senate info delivered between Feb and April, as IEA has not updated since late July for any Y2K information.

However, the Venezuela situation appears to be viable thru May 26,99 as Reuters Newswire ran a story about Venezuela and I'll post it again strictly for educational purposes only:

CARACAS, May 26 (Reuters) - Venezuela needs to spend $1.5 billion in an effort to prevent possible computer chaos coinciding with the change to the year 2000, with the nation's electrical system particularly vulnerable, senior officials said on Wednesday.

Presidential Chief of Staff Alfredo Pena said the previous government, which left office in February, made absolutely no preparations for a problem that requires urgent attention.

"We are very behind and it is very, very serious. We need $1.5 billion for this, which was not approved by the previous government," Pena told journalists at the Miraflores presidential palace.

The government of President Hugo Chavez already is struggling to deal with a $5 billion fiscal deficit, equivalent to about 5 percent of gross domestic product.

State-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, the world's third-largest oil exporter, was aware of the so-called Y2K bug, Pena added, and made progress in preparing its computers for possible errors caused by the date change. But Pena said the electricity sector was very vulnerable.

"Public services could be paralyzed, mainly because of problems with electricity," he said.

The head of the government Central Office of Statistics and Computing, Gustavo Mendez, said Venezuela was one of the least well-prepared countries in the world.

To those who would attack me for posting old information or trying to simply scare folks when the oil industry is "clearly going to do just fine"... let me state that the evidence is contrary to such a view. In fact, the evidence, while somewhat muddied (deliberately, I suspect by many in the industry and gov't. to avoid premature panic) ... the evidence suggests substantial risk of serious and perhaps massive problems. Will there be a meltdown in the Oil industry? I don't know. The likelihood of Oil experiencing only minor problems is very small. The likelihood from my research suggests substantial shortages of supply are indeed fairly likely, and remote chances of massive shortages are not unlikely and greater chance for massive shortages than none.

Until 5 months ago most of the world was estimated to be far behind the USA... the Senate testimony and CIA data points to most foreign oil companies behind far behind. The Venezuelan gov't as late as the end of May is stating that their state-owned oil co.s were far behind and had done NOTHING up through February. NOW, HOW DOES ANY MAJOR OIL COMPANY GET Y2K READY IN LESS THAN 8 MONTHS???? The norm is has been showing that many companies have needed years and many needing many many years. So how is it that now these companies can be expected to honestly get compliant or fix mission criticals in 8 months or less? Right now the main Venezuelan Oil company PDVSA states that it will be compliant and done by August or September. See their website. http://www.pdvsa.pdv.com/pdvsa_2000/english/des_adv_en.html

How does a company do a massive compliance between May and August or September... that's actually perhaps 5 months. If you give them the benefit of doubt that they might have jump-started on March 1, 99 then that's 7 months. Oh, and they state they had 25 million lines of code to remediate. Of course they're switching to SAP as part of their solution. Still, you just don't jump start and finish in even 10 months. PDVSA is only 1 of 3 big oil companies in Venezuela. I've heard nor seen anything regarding the other 2 companies.

We've not even touched upon the others. Of course Saudi Aramco claims it would be compliant also in the 3rd Quarter. It's magical almost as to how many oil companies will be "done" in the third quarter, and of course everone will be done by the 4th quarter, except ENRON who states that it takes more than 1 round of remediation and testing and they say that this goes for everyone and not just themselves. They indicate that full remediation needs a lot more than 1 or 2 times around. They don't think they'll get done in time, why should the others think they'll be done??? Answer: They won't get done if round 1 is actually just the preliminary round.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), October 18, 1999

Answers

Rats, it didn't format right for the chart, sorry about that... just go to the link to see the chart. Sorry folks.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), October 18, 1999.

ThanksRC! I apreciate the time you spend keeping us posted on the oil industry. I believe that is the thing that will cause us the most grief in the next 18 months....energy shortages.

-- jeane (jeanne@hurry.now), October 18, 1999.