Y2K RED ALERT for Venezuela's Oil Co from 12/31/99 to 1/5/2000

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For those of you who want to take note of the Y2K oil factor ... Here's more news on Venzuela and Y2K. Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA is going to Red Alert status (their term not mine) with their customers on Dec 31st and will remain til Jan 5th

http://www.petroleumworld.com/

Y2K: Venezuela's PDVSA to simulate Y2K on all systems Dec 17

By Joshua Dylan Mellars, Bridge News

Caracas--Dec 10--

Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA plans to conduct a full system simulation of the turn of the millennium on Dec 17, said a PDVSA source. The source said that although the simulation will allow PDVSA to confirm its systems are 100% Y2K compliant, the company will still not be sure how it could be affected by possible failures in Venezuela's electricity system.

* * * PDVSA plans to call a red alert on Dec 31, in which it will tell clients it cannot be held responsible for late oil shipments due to computer bug problems. The red alert will stay in place at least until Jan 5, even if there are no major problems, and the company will also reduce operations to a minimum until PDVSA officials confirm there are no problems due to the bug. PDVSA officials say the company is 100% prepared for the bug, however PDVSA executives continue to meet every day to discuss strategies to assure the least amount of problems possible occur. The country's major power companies finished upgrades and testing in November and are now ready to face the New Year, but power outages remain a concern for most major industries. End

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), December 13, 1999

Answers

The standard CYA!

Thanks R.C., read your other post today also. Appreciate your efforts for keeping us up to-date!!

-- everythingsuptodateinkansascity... (karlacalif@aol.com), December 13, 1999.


In the USA, we call this FORCE MAJURE. It is a tool for breaking contractual obligations due to conditions beyond the contracting parties control. It is usually guaranteed to be a one way ticket to court.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), December 13, 1999.

R.C.

Keep 'em coming,

latest I've heard is a strike by oilworkers in VZ ffrom dec 24th??? onwards...???

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 14, 1999.


Andy,

Don't get too bulled up over a Venz oil union strike threat. They're about like Columbia pipeline bombings- they happen all the time and they rarely have much of an oil market threat. I think I read there have been 8 Venz stike threats since the start of the year, none of which disrupted any oil production or exports.

Venezuela IS a good reason to be in gasoline calls instead of crude- 1.2 mil barrels a day of refining capacity - much of the output of which is exported to the Carribean and NE US.

The Venz elected a new Pres in Feb that came out and publicly berated his predecesor for doing zip on y2k. PVDSA has been on it since '98 but the gov there, power and infrastructure is prob gonna sputter.

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), December 14, 1999.


thanks RC for keeping us up-dated. The reports on oil, events at banks,etc are the only things very worthwhile reading on this forum lately. I do appreciate your efforts!

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), December 14, 1999.


Question to RC or anyone for that matter,

1. How does a Country go from being on the U.S. gov. Red zone for lack of remediation to 100% in the same year that they have a presidential change when the outgoing president said: oops we don't have the billion necessary for remediation?

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 14, 1999.


To "d"

I'd say it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is. :-)

Obviously its a case of "spin control" wouldn't you agree?

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), December 15, 1999.


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