Blockchain to Increase Trade Accuracy and Operational Efficiency for Oil and Gas

The oil & gas firms leveraging blockchain are in a position to increase trade accuracy, improve scheduling and back-office efficiency, improve operational efficiency, increase access to trade info, and lessen the working capital cycle.

Recently, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) pilot was conducted by the OOC Oil and Gas Blockchain Consortium to confirm the use and possibilities of blockchain to automate financial payments for oilfield water-handling and the results were positive.

In this experiment, DLT lowered the number of payments associated with water treatment by 9 steps. Tasks that normally took 90 to 120 days were processed in 1 to 7 days. The consortium unveiled that the DLT managed to automatically verify 85% of the measured data. The introduction of blockchain was mainly aimed at reducing operating costs, payments conflicts, and fraud risks in the water-handling field.

Blockchain gaining traction

In fact, the industry has been actively moving to take advantage of blockchain while recording and validating real-time transactions for some time now.

Back in 2018, Vakt, an energy trading platform built by global oil companies like BP, Shell and Equinor, rolled out its enterprise platform. The solution involving DLT intends to move the oil sector’s participants from clumsy paperwork to smart contracts, hence lessening the time spent on mind-numbing operations and making the entire process more effective.

Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, the world’s largest oil firm, took part in an investment round of data security that won the OOC pilot project in 2019 and invested around $4.8 million USD in Vakt, earlier this year.

What do users get in the end?

DLT and blockchain are digital tools showing the potential and possibilities for firms to handle an area of ineptitude that they have not been able to manage suitably before now. Firms have control over their internal processes, but the reality is that no firm can do business alone, and there are several external interactions in business which are very burdensome, labour-intensive, inefficient and inept. Hence, wasting resources: money and time.

The technology has unique features and combined with other tools can help users to break down internal and external silos in any kind of business. With blockchain, business operations can be safely and transparently self-run, chronicled in real-time minus any major point of failure.

The tech will assist in transfiguring oil and gas sector logistics networks. DLT allows unchangeable, secure, transparent and auditable business dealings among energy sector players and suppliers, salespersons and shareholders.

Blockchain technology provides significant opportunities for customer-facing goods and services. When the fuel and gas have been brought to market for sale, DLTs have the potential to handle and run point-of-sale (PoS) systems, consumer account information, and purchase reward programs. Here, the benefits of blockchains go to the oil and gas client, by making fuel sales fast, secure, transparent and convenient.