BTL Group Ltd. (TSX Venture: BTL) has provided further information on the next phase of its previously announced European energy trading project, under which four oil and gas supermajors and five energy traders including Eni Trading & Shipping, Total, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited, Mercuria, Vattenfall, Petroineos and Freepoint, propose to participate in using BTL’s Interbit blockchain platform to deliver gas trading reconciliation through to settlement and delivery of trades. This enterprise solution is being called OneOffice and is a revenue generating project for BTL.
OneOffice – this second phase of BTL’s European energy project – follows the completion of the phase one pilot which demonstrated the Interbit platform’s delivery of back office cost saving via smart contracts that automate trade reconciliation processes. In this second phase, BTL will work with the participants to build the OneOffice application to deliver cost savings across the trade life cycle.
Interbit has the capacity to operate and interconnect many thousands of blockchains per server, in a secure, private and scalable manner and moreover is designed for ease of use.
Francesco Romeo, Eni Trading & Shipping ICT Vice President, said:
Following our experience during the European energy pilot, we look forward to expanding the scope to enable straight through processing through the whole settlement process as well as bringing wider participation from the industry.
Total has been trading gas and power since 2000. At the moment, we hear a lot about blockchain and how this technology could transform the trading processes. If successful, this initiative with BTL could help us to reduce the risks of human errors and to increase the speed in the reconciliation process of transactions with our fellow counterparts,” added Philippe Chauvain, Vice President Risk Control and IT – Total Gas & Power Limited.
Catherine Newman, General Manager Global IT & Delivery, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited, concluded:
Blockchain could provide cross-industry opportunities to improve the speed, security and efficiency of transactions with Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited’s counterparties at the forefront of technological developments in commodity trading. These opportunities can only be realised by working collaboratively with other commodity market participants. Although it is early stages yet, the POC with BTL represents an exciting and potentially disruptive prospect in the near future.