The majority of the oil and gas industry – 94% – report theircomputer systems will be ready by Sept. 30th to deal with anyglitches that may be brought about by the change to a newmillennium, according to the latest survey conducted by the NaturalGas Council and the American Petroleum Institute (API). The entireindustry expects to be Y2K ready by the end of December.

The survey, which polled 1,250 companies that supply 93% ofdomestic oil and natural gas demand, said all anticipate they willhave “checked, tested and upgraded” the computers used in theirbusiness systems and embedded systems by the end of the year.Additionally, all indicated they will seek assurance about theirsuppliers’ Y2K readiness, and will have contingency plans in effectin case supplier compliance cannot be confirmed before the year’send.

Oil and gas companies are making these adjustments to theircomputer systems to ensure that the industry runs smoothly whenJan. 1, 2000 comes around. The key concern is that computers willnot be able to acknowledge the “00” as referring to the year 2000,but rather will interpret it to mean 1900.

The latest industry survey, which was submitted recently toFERC, was conducted in May and is a follow-up to earlier ones donein January and last summer. It found 91% of oil and gas companiescurrently are in the final remediation and testing phases withtheir business computer systems, up from 86% in the January survey.It further showed oil and gas companies currently are in thetesting phase with the computers used in their operations andembedded systems, and they are verifying their readiness withaudits by either outside or internal computer experts.

“The industry’s survey results clearly show progress inpreparing for the Y2K change. This makes us more confident thanever of our ability to deliver gas and oil reliably on and afterJan. 1, 2000,” said Ron Quiggins, director of the Year 2000 Programfor Shell Services International and chairman of the API Year 2000Task Force.

Susan Parker

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