VAKT today announces that the first-ever physical oil trade confirmations are being conducted using the VAKT technology. Gunvor Group and TotalEnergies Trading SA (TOTSA) lead this industry first, with more counterparties to follow.  

This digitised transaction is a milestone for the oil trading industry. Due to the complexity of physical oil trades, the contracting process has traditionally been manual and intricate. The process is time consuming for both the issuing and receiving teams even when creating standard contracts directly from an energy trading risk management (ETRM) system. By moving to a fully digitalised process, VAKT customers gain the ability to confirm trades securely and easily, allowing them to focus on handling exceptions.

Due to the automated nature of the VAKT confirmation facility, the confirmations process can begin as soon as the trade is captured by both counterparties, ensuring that discrepancies between buyer and seller can be identified and resolved at T0, rather than days afterwards, thereby avoiding potentially costly errors down the processing chain. VAKT enhances security throughout the deal process. 

Commenting on the development, VAKT CEO Etienne Amic said: 

“Confirmations have been around for a long time in financial markets, in commodity derivatives and in simpler physical commodity markets such as Gas & Power. They require a careful articulation between a technology platform and a Master Trading Agreement. Being able to confirm waterborne oil trades on VAKT is a major milestone in the digitisation of physical commodity markets. Aside from their inherent efficiency, confirmations also create an incentive to normalise the reference data used by the industry, which is well underway at VAKT. We congratulate our clients for having the foresight to effect that change and we are confident that confirmations will become the dominant form of contracting in crude and refined products.”

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