Dog Gone:

Prior to rollover, you had been in touch with a person that was working in Saudi in the oil industry. Have you heard from him lately? Do you know how to get in touch? I certainly would appreciate having an up-date from that person, if possible!!

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), January 20, 2000

Answers

jeanne,

Well, I'm in New York City at the moment, heading for Pittsburgh tomorrow morning, and then on to Florida for a family get-together this weekend. Won't be anywhere Rio Rancho for a couple weeks, and unfortunately I don't know Dog Gone's "real" email address...

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), January 20, 2000.

Ed Yourdon: If you read this.....I think Dog Gone lives in the Rio Rancho area. If you have his e-mail, could you inquire of him as to his Saudi contacts?

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), January 20, 2000.

Do you mean Dog Gone, the guy who posted this:

Update on Saudi Oil Ports--not good on Sep 30 and resurfaced on Dec 20 confirm them in

Let the (oil) chips (embedded) fall where they may. UN says Arab oil nations are toast??

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

Jeanne,

we are tracking him down! this from downstreamers forum...

Author Comment dickmoody Global user (1/20/00 3:15:33 am) Reply Insider source in Saudi Arabia says Oil is "toast" from Y2K??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

On the Timebomb 2000 Y2k forum, there is a thread posted with a link to an email sent to Ed Yourdon regarding Y2K remediation problems in Saudi Arabia. It sounds like from this source that Saudi Arabia is experiencing some severe problems with Y2K and its affected oil production over there. I don't have to remind you all of the significance. The source says that Saudi Arabia's 3rd largest oil port is "TOAST" as well as other related problems elsewhere. Here's the comments and the link.

Anyway, some other news. The contract (last, pre rollover) that we completed was a contingency plan. Well, they are running on it now, and have just released an RFP for the complete replacement system as everything we predicted would happen, did happen. The govt agency took a 75% productivity hit in the one section, and the

mgmt of the rest of the resource is down at least 50%. So they fought for money and got it, and now are slowly moving to replace.

Also, a programming friend in Saudi Arabia says the area that he is

working on (i do not know the name of his current site, but he is in

the 3rd largest oil port in the region) is basically toast. I have only

had one cryptic email from him since rollover. He said that his area

has terminal flow issues.

ALso, locally, the need for device driver coders is rising as are rates for the work. Hard to say yet how bad it will be, but usually

we get offered about 4 jobs a year at the hardware level. In this week alone (two days now) we have been offered four and I have two calls yet to return to recruiters. So.......

BTW: My friend in Saud always maintained that it would take 40 to 60 days to determine how bad the oil problems would be. He had originally said that oil at 30 a gal by the end of feb would signal a 7

to 10% hit in production. Now we are at near 30 by the end of Jan. What that would indicate cannot be good......

I guess that my fall back position of getting into the alternative energy business by this summer.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

Charles Darwin

Cliff H Tenax Software Engineering Vortex is at ......

http://syninfo.com/ian/PRIVATE/2000/01/18/2000011818552846.html

dickmoody Global user (1/20/00 3:22:33 am)

Reply Re: Insider source in Saudi Arabia says Oil is "toast" from Y2K??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

I thought I'd keep this comment separate, but frankly, we don't know who this source is. It may not be legitimate, but again it may quite credible.

I figure if Venzuela's having big problems, and we're seeing a lot of small but escalating problems here, it would only stand to reason Saudi Arabia would have some problems.

Now, for me, if this is true, it would explain why the Saudi and Venzuelan Oil Ministers have been so chummy of late and how they've both been talking about keeping the quotas. After all maybe they can't even produce to quota!

This would also explain the recent estimate that said to expect a 4% shortfall in crude for 1Q. And it would of course explain why the big boys stayed long over a holiday weekend (assuming they knew at least a few details or enough to know that some serious problems were in the works worse than media is telling. These guys apparently now know or suspect something big. Hey, they even took it up on Wed in the face of a small rise in inventory. Maybe they overlooked that because they're thinking in the next couple of weeks it may look bleak for inventory? Who knows. Just my take on it.

Andy Local user (1/20/00 7:47:20 am) Reply Re: Insider source in Saudi Arabia says Oil is "toast" from Y2K??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Thanks Dick.

As you may know I worked in Saudi for three years, in Jeddah, had lots of Aramco contacts. Botton line, I've taken a big interest and always went out of my way to chase up any inside information on Saudi [i.e. Dog Gone on tb2k] - nearly everything I've heard has been uniformly bad. This, combined with my own experiences training Saudis in Kingdom, leads me to believe these general thrust of these reports.

Dog Gone Unregistered User (1/20/00 10:39:53 am) Reply Current Saudi situation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- I'll get to the bottom of this. This source at Yourdon is NOT the same source I had for posting at TB2000, but the information is completely consistent with what I was told prior to rollover. I believe my source is in Saudi Arabia right now, but I'm not sure. He had a contract to send a team over there after rollover, but I've forgotten the exact date (plus it might have changed since I last talked to him anyway). I'll see what I can find out. link at

http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets.showMessag e?topicID=223.topic

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 20, 2000.

Hey guys,

I've been out of pocket for a few days, and am just getting up to speed on the Saudi situation. The current report is not from the same source that conducted the pre-rollover assessment, but it's entirely consistent.

I think my friend is in Saudi Arabia now (he had a contract to go back in hand before rollover). It is possible it's from his team, though.

I'll try to reach my friend by e-mail today, and give him a call tonight. I don't have his number here at the office. I'll let you know what I find out.

BTW, the email address is now real.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000.

He's in Saudi Arabia now. He learned the hard way that all communication is monitored in that country. I don't expect to hear from him unless it's very cryptically. Unless he goes to the embassy.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000.

Nice excuse, but it doesn't cut it for me. Excuse me, but has he heard of encryption? There is nice strong stuff available outside of the US. He can use that to get his message to you.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

I don't care if it cuts it for you or not. He doesn't work for me or have any obligation to take any risk whatsoever. If he passes along information I can share, I'll do so, but your criticism of him is out of line.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000.

I'm not critizing him. I'm critizing you making an excuse on his behalf. Let him make if he wishes to. That's fine with me. But since we don't know who you are or who he is, and have no independent verifcation of anything you've posted, just seems a little convenient for you to making and excuse for him before you've even talked to him.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

Thanks Dog Gone!!! We all (most all) sincerely appreciate your efforts to keep us posted!!!

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), January 20, 2000.

Jeanne:

You're right.

Dog Gone:

I'm just fuming over something similar in another thread on RC and just unfairly unloaded on you here because it seemed like another source making any claim to keep credibility. You're right I'm out of line, and hope you'll accept my appology.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

That's okay,

I'm a little defensive of him because he doesn't post here and can't defend himself, certainly not from where he is. I know him. I know his name. I've talked to him on the phone. His credibility is no better than mine, but mine is no better than his, because I believe what he tells me.

He was wrong about one thing, but it wasn't factual. He thought Bin-Laden would be able to use rollover to start trouble in Saudi Arabia. Bin-Laden wasn't, but that was almost off-topic. Of course, to the extent that problems are just starting to appear, it's too early to close the book on that. It still is Bin-Laden's goal to overthrow the Saudi government. That is no secret.

Anyway, I don't have encryption software installed (maybe I should) and I don't know enough about it yet, to be honest.

Anyway, thanks for the apology. Accepted. Forgotten. I'll do my best to keep the forum informed on what is an important issue, without a doubt.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000.

Well problem with strong encryption is that the US stops any developed in the US from being exported (all though it does allow the source code to be in paper format -- go figure!).

Well there is a product which is I think supposed to be quite good: PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) originally developed at MIT and has over 6m users. Its available legally internationally (meaning the source in printed form was exported, scanned, and re-compiled outside the US) at:

www.pgpi.org

Take a look, and take at the FAQ to learn more about it.

BTW, the product is free.

Now I'm sure those more up on this stuff can tell you a lot more about PGP or better products, but PGP is pretty strong (1024 bit).

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

Oh, yes I forgot to mention, there is a very solid and reliable and free internet phone product called Speak Freely available at LINK

It can use PGP, just check on which version you need and so forth. I played with it about a year ago with PGP and it worked wonderfully (slight delay (.25 sec) for overseas). Just need a multimedia machine on both ends with speaker and mikes. Its like using a CB radio, i.e. one person talk at a time by pushing a "button". But with PGP, your entire converstation is encrypted (so snoops can't listen in and so is better than the phone) and is FREE - no long distance charges.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

It is against the Law to use the internet for voice in several West African countries.
There may be problems with Saudia Arabia censoring all IP packets.
They(the .gov) might not allow encrypted packets.
Might check with ISP types that have international experience.


-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

Love this world of rights and freedoms we live in.

How nice, if you can't beat them, just get rid of them - at least they tell you the rules of the game.

Of course God forbid that the USA would be so draconian, they're much more honest they just keep an org like the NSA to keep track of everything you say but just don't tell you:

Report: U.S. Uses Key Escrow To Steal Secrets

--------EXERPTS FROM ABOVE LINK FOLLOW-------

The document [ report released by the European Parliament] went on to detail how the agencies specifically studied Internet data. Apart from scanning all international communications lines --using 120 satellites, microwave listening stations, and an adapted submarine-- it said they stored and analyzed Usenet discussions. "In the U.K., the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency maintains a 1-terabyte database containing the previous 90 days of Usenet messages."

The "NSA employs computer 'bots' (robots) to collect data of interest," the report adds. "For example, a New York website known as JYA.COM offers extensive information on cryptography and government communications interception activities. Records of access to the site show that every morning it is visited by a bot from NSA's National Computer Security Center, which looks for new files and makes copies of any that it finds."

According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect traffic at nine major Internet exchange points.

The report offered evidence that a leading U.S. Internet and telecommunications company had contracted with the NSA to develop software to capture Internet data of interest, and that deals had been struck with Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 20, 2000.

Sorry gang, I found out less than nothing today. Was mostly to busy to look for secondary clues and heard nothing from primary sources. If there's anything to it, it will be known at some point.

Anyone notice that Mar crude is now trading up 46 cts in Access?

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

to the top!....hope you've heard from your contact Dog Gone!

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), January 22, 2000.

I have, and I've been debating internally ever since what to do with it.

I can't post his post here, because he left way too many clues about who he is. Itinerary, projects, scheduled meetings with officials. That sort of thing.

Since I'm posting just a brief summary, I'm subject to the normal abuse here about unattributed stuff, but screw it. Some of you see through that. Here goes:

The ports in Saudi Arabia are having severe technology problems. The one at Yanbu is basically toast. The one at Jeddah is "almost" fully operational. That's the good news. The bad news is that telephones are not working well at all. Maybe 30% efficiency on wireline and 50% on cellular. At this point the situation is deteriorating. Bin- Laden operatives are trying to cause trouble by stirring up passions. The foreign workers are staging a work slowdown to seek improved conditions (the Saudis don't like to do the manual work themselves). The phones are causing further complications in the whole export process.

Overall, things do NOT look good, and may deteriorate next month to the point where being a Westerner there might be a bad thing.

The local press is echoing the US line that there are no problems at all.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I'm honestly relaying much of what he said. It's a dicey situation over there, and I won't even reveal how he was able to send this update. I want him there and healthy for the next one. He'll be there a little while longer.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 22, 2000.

Did he mention anything about the actual oil wells themselves? Also, did he say anything about the plants that process sea water into drinkable water?

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), January 22, 2000.

Not in this message. Previously he had said that the desalinzation plants appeared to be compliant (this was last fall). The problem never was with the actual wells. It's getting the crude from the wells to the ports and onto the tankers. The phone issues go to pipeline control, and the ports and loading facilities have a lot of systems that are not working correctly. The good news is that some crude is getting out. But not nearly as much. I don't have statistics, and anyone in possession of them had best keep their mouth shut for now.

We've found one source of the missing supply of crude that's driving up prices. I'll bet there are others.

-- Dog Gone (dawgawn@yahoo.com), January 22, 2000.

I'd like to hear some good reports from other mid-east producers. Does anybody have other sources?

-- Filbert (fdvidsn@csl.com), January 23, 2000.