S&P Global Platts, the independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets, has announced to deploy a secure Blockchain network to allow market participants to submit weekly inventory oil storage data to Fujairah Oil Industry Zone (FOIZ) and the regulator FEDCom
FOIZ hosts the Middle East’s largest commercial storage capacity for refined oil products. As exclusive publisher of FOIZ's weekly oil inventory numbers, S&P Global Platts continues to partner with the Emirate in its aim to becoming a global trading hub.
In collaboration with FOIZ, FEDCom and the 11 terminal operators that use the flagship Middle Eastern facility, S&P Global Platts has developed a full scale commercial deployment of the Blockchain distributed ledger technology. This aims to provide security to FOIZ and its port operators, together with ease of use, and a full audit trail to collate weekly inventory oil products storage data.
The new technology aims to improve the manual and unstructured process by which the terminal operators communicate their weekly inventory numbers to FEDCom. The new solution also alleviates the need for FEDCom to undertake manual validation and aggregation of each terminal operator’s numbers, reducing the scope for human error.
Sohail Iqbal, member development committee at FOIZ, and Salem Al-Hmoudi, member at FEDCom, agreed that the innovation represents the next step forward in Fujairah’s ambitions to become a global hub for commodity trading. It is expected to allow the terminal operators to be at the forefront of technology while at the same time operating at the highest level of security.
Mamdouh Malek Azizeh, commercial director at Fujairah Oil Terminal FZC, said, “Blockchain innovation will allow Fujairah’s terminal operators such as us to deliver operations in a more efficient and secure environment. The technology will allow us to deliver results under a secure and no risk environment, which are seminal to the energy industry.”
This project is set to deliver tangible benefits in recognition of an industry need for a more efficient and secure submissions process. These include:
· Reducing the burden of manual data management for both FEDCom and the terminal operators
· Dynamic display of reported numbers at an aggregated or individual operator level
· Improving reporting quality by automatically validating numbers with predefined criteria and aggregating numbers, avoiding human input
· Simplifying the certification of asset ownership.
· Improving security of data transmission and storage
As in the current process, FEDCom will have sole access to all individual terminal operator numbers and will submit only the approved aggregated weekly numbers to S&P Global Platts for global distribution.
