Can't find either one in archives. Looking for a newspaper (etc.) article not just a discussion thread. Have a "almost ready to get it" person who doesn't really believe me on thse two issues. Thanks,

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie123@aol.com), November 28, 1999

Answers

Hi Taz, how about information from the Social Security Site itself. Please see www.ssa.gov. You will find a link to SSI payment schedule for 1999 and the year 2000. SSI checks will be going out on December 1st and December 30th (for January 2000). Hope this helps. Also will be sending you a direct link to the page, so that you can print. Suzy

-- Suzy (HAYSandCO@aol.com), November 28, 1999.

Try these oil pipeline articles, Taz:

http://www.syracuse.com/newsstories/regional/19991110_cpnoil.html

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001kiM

ARTICLE: [Pulled from oil trading forum -- no reference provided, but I saw confirmation from at least two articles.]

Tuesday November 16 4:29 AM ET

Explorer to Shut Pipe Temporarily New Year's Eve

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Explorer Pipeline Co. said Monday it plans to idle its entire oil products pipeline system, which feeds the Midwest, for 20 hours starting New Year's Eve to guard against any unexpected Y2K incidents.

``We will do the same thing as Colonial. We will shut our system temporarily,'' Explorer President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Van Dyke told Reuters by telephone.

The Houston-to-Chicago Explorer Pipeline, the second largest refined products pipeline in America and jointly owned by eight oil companies, can pump as much as 700,000 barrels per day of refined products like gasoline and distillates.

Colonial, the No.1 pipeline firm, has already announced an eight hour shutdown of its entire 5,300-mile-long oil products line from Houston to New York, starting before midnight December 31, to avoid any such disruptions.

Officials at Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Explorer said the Explorer line shutdown will last from 5:00 p.m. (CST) December 31 until 1 p.m. January 1, 2000.

For Colonial, which has a capacity of some 2.1 million bpd, the shutdown is due to start at 6:30 p.m. (EST) and last for eight hours.

Experts fear potential problems to communications or power supply, for instance, due to the so-called Year 2000 computer bug, which may cause some older computers to malfunction after the date roll on December 31, 1999.

``We have excess capacity this time of year so the shutdown will not be a big problem...We should be able to compensate for the supply loss,'' Tom Jensen, Explorer's manager of shipper relations and transportation services, told Reuters.

He said although the Explorer system was Y2K-compliant, like Colonial's, the company was taking no chances.

``If we had any problems with communications or power supply we want to make sure that our line is down at that time so we have no unforeseen problems,'' Jensen told Reuters.

ARTICLE: [First URL above]

Oil To Halt for Y2K Flow to stop for 4 to 8 hours just to be safe

By Mark Weiner

The interstate oil pipelines that supply Central New York with gasoline, diesel and jet fuel will temporarily shut down at the end of year due to concerns over the Y2K computer bug.

Owners of the three major pipelines to the Syracuse region said they are confident their operations are Y2K-compliant, and emphasized the decision to turn off the flow is a precaution.

Mobil Oil Corp., Sun Oil Co. and Buckeye Pipe Line officials said they will start to reopen their pipelines anywhere from four to eight hours into the new year. To make sure all systems are functioning and prevent a catastrophic accident, the pipelines will be reopened only in small segments after the rollover to 2000.

The companies say the shutdown is an important safety move because power failures or computer glitches within the system could prevent valves from opening or closing, disrupting an operation moving millions of barrels of petroleum products each day.

"We will be exercising caution through those midnight hours," said Mobil spokeswoman Ida Walker. "If we do not have a need for product, we will not be shipping product during that time frame. It will give us time to check our systems."

Oil company officials said the limited shutdown should not affect fuel supplies. Thomas Collins, spokesman for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said consumers would be wise to fill their tanks before the holiday weekend. But he said there's no need to store or hoard fuel.

"We're thinking about what kind of public consumption message we can send out without creating panic," said Collins.

The American Petroleum Institute, a national trade organization representing the petroleum industry, reported Oct. 1 that all gas and oil pipelines in the United States are Y2K-compliant.

Each day, those pipelines carry most of the 750 million gallons of petroleum products to more than 300 storage terminals in the United States.

Despite reassurances of business as usual, some pipeline operators decided to shut down Dec. 31 to make sure they will be unaffected if the Y2K computer bug strikes other critical infrastructure across the nation.

The problem stems from decades of using two digits to represent the year in dates. Computers, software and electronic devices might malfunction if they read 00 as 1900 or do not understand that it is a date.

"We don't have an exact number, but I would say about 25 percent of the product pipelines have announced plans to temporarily stop service over the rollover," said Kendra Martin, an API staffer in Washington, D.C., who specializes in Y2K issues.

"Most of them seem to be planning shutdowns over a four- to eight-hour window," Martin said. "But there's not really a consistent decision by the pipeline companies. They're all doing different things."

Oil company officials say such shutdowns are done periodically without interrupting supply. Many companies decided it was better to be cautious and shut down their pipelines for a few hours, even if they are confident about their own computer operations in 2000, she said.

The midnight hours

"We are letting people know there are all kinds of business decisions that individual companies are having to take ... to factor in the level of risk they feel they might have, as well as issues like convenience," Martin said. "Do you really need to be operating over those couple of hours in the middle of the night?"

In the case of Mobil, the company decided it would be best to shut down its pipeline operations on New Year's Eve.

The Mobil pipeline pumps regular unleaded and premium gasoline from Paulsboro, N.J., to a storage terminal at the Thruway Energy Distribution Park in the town of Van Buren. The 6-inch pipeline carries 9,000 barrels of regular or super gasoline or diesel fuel each day, Walker said.

"Right now we're planning to be down during the midnight hours for a four-to eight-hour stretch, unless we need to deliver product," she said. "Then we would use the pipeline."

That decision will be made closer to Dec. 31, when it becomes clear how much demand from customers needs to be met over the holiday weekend.

"We will make sure we have adequate supplies to meet our customers' needs," Walker said.

Sun Oil Co. plans a four-hour shutdown of the pipeline that brings its fuel from Marcus Hook, Pa., to Central New York.

"We don't anticipate any problems," said Jerry Davis, a spokesman at Sun headquarters in Philadelphia. "It's precautionary on our part."

He said Sun spent more than $37 million company-wide to make sure its computer systems are Y2K-compliant.

An official with Pennsylvania-based Buckeye Pipe Line said his company is most concerned about other companies who sell it products and services and are important links in the pipeline distribution system.

"We feel we're fully Y2K-compliant," said Roy Haase, manager of right-of-way for Buckeye Pipe Line. "We've done extensive changes of hardware to make sure that we are."

Added measure of safety

Haase said his company is confident its upgraded computers will be able to monitor the input and output of the pipelines properly, schedule the dispatching of various products, and open or close valves in certain locations. He said the New Year's Eve shutdown is an added measure of safety.

"We will shut down one hour before midnight and begin the startup in segments about one hour after midnight as a precaution," he said.

The latest national survey of the oil and natural gas industry found some 2,160 companies will consider themselves Y2K-compliant by December. No companies responding to the industry-sponsored survey said they will miss the deadline.

About 150,000 of the nation's retail gasoline outlets, or 77 percent of those in operation, reported they will be 100 percent Y2K compliant by December.

"The results in this final survey, show that we are right on target in our preparations, and verify that we will be ready for the Y2K date change," said Ron Quiggins, chairman of the American Petroleum Institute's Year 2000 Task Force. "Based on this survey, we are more confident than ever of our ability to deliver gas and oil reliably on and after Jan. 1, 2000."

The oil and natural gas industry spent more than $2 billion during the past five years to make certain that supplies will not be interrupted by the Y2K computer bug, according to API. Most crude oil suppliers from the Middle East to Latin America also report their operations are Y2K-compliant at a time when the United States has a growing dependence on foreign oil.

The United States imports about 48 percent of its crude oil, with most of that supply coming from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico.

Even if a catastrophic failure disrupted the supply of imported oil, the United States would still be able to weather any short-term problems.

The national Strategic Petroleum Reserve has about 565 million barrels of oil stored in domes in the Southwest. That reserve can produce 3.9 million barrels a day for 90 days, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Wednesday, November 10, 199

-- not (saying@this.time), November 28, 1999.