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Oil companies confront bug
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February 23, 1999: 2:56 p.m. ET
Industry facing Y2K threat that's as daunting as slumping prices
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The oil industry, already hurt by low prices and low demand, faces another big challenge: making sure everything from its vast oil rigs to the filling station gas pumps work properly on Jan. 1, 2000.
That's a tall Y2K order. The oil companies have tons of machinery scattered across the country, all with potentially faulty computer chips built in.
"The biggest challenge was trying to get our arms wrapped around what it is we're really dealing with in terms of going from this black box fear, if you will, that the sky is going to fall, into a rational mode of saying, 'Wait a minute. It's just a step-by-step process, and it's really no different than any other information systems project that you would implement,' " Judith Cunningham, Year 2000 Project Manager at BP Amoco, said. "The only difference is its magnitude."
Millions of microchips are embedded in everything from pipelines to oil rigs. A large refinery, such as the one operated by BP Amoco just outside New Orleans, might have a half-dozen computerized systems all running at the same time.
Chips in BP Amoco equipment
Each system contains hundreds of chips. And each chip contains tens of thousands of lines of computer code, which must be replaced if they contain the millennium bug.
This computer-automated system controls the production of almost three million gallons of gasoline per day. BP tested the system in March 1998 and found it was not Y2K compliant. If left unfixed, this system would have shut down gasoline production here at the turn of the century.
"So what we had to do was go back to our manufacturer, the vendor that supplies us the equipment, and tell them, 'Define, describe in all the ways possible, what we saw,' " said Joe Glenn III, project manager for the BP Amoco Alliance Refinery. "And they would say, 'Well, yes, we are aware of that. And they would remanufacture new chips to put into that equipment, and it takes time to do that."
BP also found that the computerized registers that verify customer credit and update inventory at its Amoco service stations were not Y2K compliant. So it replaced them with new terminals at its 2,500 stations nationwide last year.
Fortunately, the oil industry got a head start. BP Amoco says it's now ready for 2000 and has almost completed remedial work on its most critical systems.
BP Amoco says it's ready for Y2K
Yet, even the company admits it may consider stockpiling some supplies in the event of a shutdown or other problem occurring when 2000 begins.
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BP Amoco
Y2K
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