Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology has already proven its mettle numerous times across various industries. Now, the very technology has made it evident for the big energy companies that they can save lots of time and hassle by using it for their trading needs. Following successful trials, two major oil corporations, BP (formerly British Petroleum) and Eni appear to have developed a positive outlook towards incorporating distributed ledger into their energy trading platform.
According to a news report, the companies have started to operate the blockchain-based trading application alongside its existing live trading platform. The decision to simultaneously operate both the platforms was made following an earlier 12 week-long trial conducted by both BP and Eni in association with another Austrian energy company, Wien Energie.
The energy majors are operating Interbit blockchain platform provided by BTL Group. The spokesperson for BTL Group informed the media about a trial instance where the blockchain based trading system was able to identify differences in the allocated volumes of French gas sold to BP by its partner, Eni. The same report also quotes Andrew Woosey, a partner at EY who was involved in the early testing phase of BTL Group’s Interbit blockchain based trading platform.
Woosey reiterated the benefit of distributed ledger based trading platform over the conventional ones by saying,
“Use of such technology can help by streamlining back office processes, leading to reduced risk, better protection against cyber threats and ultimately significant cost savings.”
The use of blockchain powered platforms trading commodities is not a new thing. Many startups are already in various stages of development and implementation of such solutions. The use of cryptocurrency technology will drastically reduce the time and resources required to process trades. It will also introduce unprecedented levels of transparency to the process, making it easy to audit the trades.
Given all these advantages, the companies could eventually extend the trials to replace the existing infrastructure with the new blockchain solution.
Ref: Reuters | Image: NewsBTC