By Another day and yet another innovative use for blockchain technology. This time a blockchain-based trading platform which could aid major names in the oil game and trading firms with drastic cost reductions has recently gone live.
Named “Vakt”, the platform went which was built last year by a consortium comprised of the Anglo-Dutch oil tycoon Shell & British Petroleum (BP) went live this Wednesday.
Other notable members of the consortium include global commodity firm Gunvor Group, Equinor – a Norwegian energy firm as well as energy firms Koch Supply & Trading Mercuria Energy Group. Added to this are some financial firms such as Societe Generale, ABN Amro and ING.
Financing Feature To Be Added:
Initially, the platform’s core purpose will be to digitize & centralize the mountains of paperwork but in the near future, a financing feature will be added to the platform when it’s linked to the financing platform known as Komgo which was revealed to the public earlier this year.
Eren Zekioglu – Senior Executive At Gunvo Group explained:
“Vakt is the logistical arm…Once a deal is executed through our book of records, it gets pushed through Vakt. The next leg is the financing and the link-up with komgo gives access to several banks.”
In the beginning phase of Vakt, the platform will be restricted only to contracts for five different grades of crude from the North Sea, however, plans are already in motion to include oil products from the US and Northern Europe.
Notably, Vakt is not the only blockchain-based platform that has been developed for the oil industry in recent years. Earlier in March this year, it was reported that the energy sector had invested a whopping US$300 million for the development of blockchain-based applications.
ConsenSys’s & Amalto’s “Ondiflo”
A couple of notable blockchain applications that have been developed for the energy industry which has garnered prominent attention included Ondiflo, an app which was created with the purpose of digitizing & automating various oilfield related services on the Ethereum platform. The New York-based ConsenSys in partnership with Amalto were behind the development of the platform.
The Ondiflo blockchain platform was specifically developed in order to streamline & improve order-to-cash processes upon the upstream, midstream & downstream sectors of the oil industry which to this day still rely heavily on outdated paper-trail processes. The benefits of Ondiflo include way faster transactions times as well as an enhanced overall efficiency which could aid it cutting costs in an industry that all already has paper-thin margins.
Co-founder of ConsenSys Joe Lubin had to say about Ondiflo at the time of rollout:
“As one of our first ventures into the oil and gas supply chain industry, Ondiflo will offer a solution where all operators and service companies can benefit from digitization, automation and the seamless exchange of data and immutability of their records…”
Agriculture, shipping, logistics, mining & the gas industry all now make use of blockchain technology. What are your thoughts about a global revolution where blockchain is implemented for all industries? Let us know by commenting below.
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