Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, the venture division of Saudi Aramco, reportedly announced that it invested $5 million in Vakt, an oil trading platform which is blockchain based.

Vakt stated that Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures has now been added to its group of shareholders. The company now has a total of 12 shareholders and now plans to expand its footprint into new verticals using the freshly raised funds with a significant focus on Asia.

Saudi Aramco is the owner of both, the second-largest crude oil reserves in the world and second-largest oil manufacturing per day. In 2019, the company held the biggest IPO (initial public offering) in the world to date, approximately $25.6 billion.

Vakt’s platform would now be utilized by Aramco Trading Company as a part of this new investment deal. Vakt’s platform is presently operating in the North Sea crude oil sector.

Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures Europe MD, Hans Middelthon stated that VAKT has shown that its platform is capable of digitizing what is presently a highly manual process and be transformative to customers and end-users.

Middelthon further added that using blockchain theory and further applying it to the complex world of post-trade processing, the oil trading company has made a promising pitch in order to become an important part of industry’s infrastructure.

Vakt has a number of major oil companies as its users, which includes names like Equinor, BP, Reliance Industries, and Shell among others.

Apart from Vakt, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures has also invested in Data Gumbo which is a blockchain-as-a-service firm for industrial organizations, particularly from the oil and gas industry.

Earlier in September 2019, Vakt had revealed the signing of a new MOU with essDOCS, is a pioneer of paperless trade. This MOU focused on the North-West European barge industries to simplify the post-trade procedure for all companies taking part in the transaction.

 

Source credit: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-aramco-energy-ventures-invests-121019455.html