OFFSHORE PIPELINES - I am not sure of the year involved but here is what happened. The Federal Government, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), hired some experts to determine if the natural gas and oil companies were wasting money building offshore pipelines. Out of the blue one day all the companies were notified that a computer model had determined the over design of offshore pipelines.

Our Research Department had to analyze the program and determine if the claims were correct. The job fell to me as the only computer expert in the department. The government's computer program was written in FORTRAN, which allowed me to follow the code. Unfortunately, the code was extensive with many sub-routines then inter-wove throughout the program. And it was huge program.

We, like all the other natural gas companies, got a computer tape of the program and installed it on your Service Corporation's IBM main frame. We had to get a print out of the program and this in itself was a formidable task due to the number of subroutines. I remember I had to get a special holder that stood in the corner of my office to store the large books that held the program.

Analyzing the program took weeks of study and making sample runs using different values. After much study I was able to determine that one part of the program was wrong, the cost associated with risers. Risers are the part of the under sea pipeline that goes from the sea bed up to the platform. My analysis determine their model over estimated the cost significantly and, thus, the cost associated either offshore pipeline by their model was in error.

I believe that the government's programmer changed their model and shortly there after the fervor associated with FERC's concern of expensive offshore pipeline disappeared. I doubt it was due to my analysis but I would hope that mine was just a small nail in the coffin.

EFFECT OF WAVES ON OFFSHORE PIPELINES - As part of the work on the FERC offshore pipeline model, I took a five day workshop on the effect of waves on sub-sea pipelines. A very interesting workshop that involved a lot of mathematics and physics, both of which I was familiar with. As a result of the workshop I was able to construct a computer model of the effect, stress, on pipeline on the bottom of the sea based on the wave conditions on the surface. My model was able to duplicate the same models used by others, including the government. I fun program to construct.