01 / THE CONTEXT
An industry process with many moving parts.
Moving crude oil from production to market depends on a coordinated exchange among producers, facility operators, pipeline companies and marketers. Forecasts, shipment nominations and delivered volumes all need to be communicated and reconciled on a shared schedule.
Petrotranz developed industry platforms for these workflows. Alex joined the company later as Vice President of Innovation, with a product-management role overseeing the design and deployment of new features for its established software. The platforms and their customer relationships belong to Petrotranz; their development was a team effort.
02 / THE CHALLENGE
Turn an industry workflow into a connected process.
The challenge spans multiple companies, changing forecasts and tight reporting cycles. A producer’s forecast becomes part of a facility operator’s consolidated information; marketers and other participants then need to work with the resulting volumes. Different organizations have different systems and responsibilities, yet the information has to remain consistent as it passes between them.
Software for this environment must do more than collect a form. It must support the sequence of submissions and revisions, help participants reconcile quantities, exchange data with existing systems and retain a record of what happened.
03 / THE PLATFORM
From forecast to reconciliation.
Petrotranz describes its Crude Oil Transportation System as a web platform for forecasting shipping volumes, capturing production information and reconciling delivered quantities. It supports the consolidation of Form A submissions into Form C reports, including import and export with external systems.
Its related Liquids Transportation System and Petrotranz Data Exchange extended the company’s work into other liquid-energy workflows and system-to-system information exchange. Together, these products illustrate the challenge of codifying established industry practices across organizations without losing the detail each participant needs.
04 / INDUSTRY REACH
Experience at industry scale.
Petrotranz reported more than 1,400 registered companies on its platform as of January 2020. Its published history documents a multi-year COTS agreement with Plains Marketing Canada in 2008, Pembina’s implementation of its crude oil and liquids transportation systems in 2013, and Gibson Energy’s implementation of COTS in 2014. These are Petrotranz’s historical figures and customer relationships, not separate Denting the Universe clients.
In a published 2009 case study, Petrotranz reported that Secure Energy reduced its Form A cycle from 40 hours to four and its Form C, shipper split and final-volume work from 24 hours to two. These are results reported for that customer’s implementation, not a claim about Alex’s individual contribution or a promise of the same outcome elsewhere.
FURTHER READING
Explore the sources.
Petrotranz: Crude Oil Transportation System ↗
Petrotranz: company overview and historical scale ↗
Petrotranz: Plains agreement announcement ↗
Petrotranz: Pembina implementation announcement ↗
Petrotranz: Secure Energy case study ↗