[reproduced for fair use educational and discussion purposes]

BG warns of Y2K gas supply glitches

Nicholas Bannister, Chief Business Correspondent Friday November 12, 1999 The Guardian

BG, the company responsible for transporting gas throughout Britain, yesterday said it could not guarantee that the country's gas supplies would not be affected by millennium bug problems.

It said that despite work to identify potential problems within its own and its suppliers operations, it could not be certain that 'all components had been identified and fixed.'

The warning came as gas workers revealed they were planning industrial action over Christmas and the New Year in pursuit of a pay claim. Technicians working offshore on BG storage facilities in the North Sea voted 96% in favour of action. They said that BG's offer was worth only 1.5%, whereas the group said it was worth an average 3.2%.

While few companies have been prepared to give unqualified assurances that they will not experience problems at the start of the year 2000, BG's warning about the risks involved has been more comprehensive than most.

'The risks associated with the Y2K issue are unpredictable and the liabilities are wide-ranging, such that an extended Y2K disruption could cause the group's activities to be materially affected,' it said in a statement accompanying its third-quarter results.

BG, which has 270,000 miles of pipelines in Britain, said it had spent #53m over the past two years on a 'comprehensive' programme to draw up contingency plans, and that it believed all necessary precautions would be completed during November.

The group stressed that the programme had significantly lowered Y2K risks. 'As BG plays a significant part in the gas supply chain, our approach has taken the widest possible view of interdependencies, and has not taken critical assurances from third parties at face value.'

) Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 1999

[ENDS]

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 12, 1999

Answers

Thanks John. Any idea if this company services any other parts of Europe?

TA

-- Terry (Ta@pacific-ocean.com), November 12, 1999.

Not that I'm aware, Terry.

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 12, 1999.