In the "IF you think you've got problems" department: the millennium bug could paralyse up to 100 oil rigs in the North Sea, a conference in Aberdeen was told last week.
In a worst case scenario, the oil platforms would shut down when automated systems fail to recognise the year 2000. Each platform could contain more than 10,000 microprocessors, some deep below sea level, and each one would need to be checked.
Just 43 out of Europe's 100 biggest companies have con- ducted detailed investigations into the implications that the Year 2000 date change could have on their systems. Not one said that its software could handle the date change, according to a study made for US investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Honeywell says some of its products are still incompatible with the year 2000, but it hopes they will be fixed in time. In an interview with Reuters, its chairman Michael Bonsignore said the most worrying areas were in the fields of industrial process control and office environmental systems.