Oil giant Saudi Aramco joins Vakt blockchain

The blockchain platform Vakt dedicated to energy and commodities trading has a new member: Saudi Aramco. The global giant oil invests $ 5 million in the trading consortium.

Saudi Aramco broke a record at the end of last year by making the world's largest stock market listing, close to the $ 2,000 billion valuation. An investment of $ 5 million for such a giant is therefore very little.

It is nevertheless the price paid by its subsidiary Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV) to acquire shares of Vakt. This company brings together the members of a large blockchain consortium dedicated to trading commodities, mainly the oil.

Expected expansion beyond the North Sea

The Saudi oil group therefore joins the 12 other investors of Vakt, which counts in particular as members Total, BP and Shell. Aramco’s trading arm, Aramco Trading, will also become a user of the blockchain platform.

Thanks to this new investment, Vakt intends to continue developing the platform and expanding it into new markets, including Asia in particular. The arrival of this new user also announces an increase in the volumes of oil traded on the trading platform.

Today, Vakt relates exclusively to oil trading in the North Sea, through five oil fields (Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk and Troll). The blockchain consortium however wishes to expand to other operating regions.

The North Sea is just the beginning for us (…) We are now on the way to becoming the backbone of post-market processing of physical goods. We couldn't hope for a better partner for our future expansion than Saudi Aramco – especially in terms of the company's reach and expertise in Asia, ”said Vakt CEO Etienne Amic.

Vakt integrated into the komgo blockchain for financing

As for Aramco, it illustrates once again the benefits of blockchain in the sector of commodity trading, further characterized by the multiplicity of stakeholders and procedures that are not dematerialized.

The Saudi giant also aligns with its major international competitors. A year earlier, the French Total, the American Chevron and the Indian Reliance joined Vakt in order to digitize and centralize their oil transactions and thus simplify the administrative process of negotiating crude oil.

To note that Vakt is integrated into another major trade finance blockchain, komgo. This integration allows transfer of information on transactions from Vakt to Komgo for funding. It is about "the first integration which works between two really independent platforms" underlined one of its members during the conference Blockchain Paris.