Company Overview
In 2018, a group of oil majors, traders, and trade finance providers from the UK, Portugal, the US, India, and Singapore came together to form VAKT. With offices in Lisbon and London, the partners knew that the physical post-trade process, which was done by hand and prone to mistakes, needed to be streamlined and made more modern.
In the energy trading industry, VAKT utilizes blockchain technology to create a centralized, secure record of all trade details for all parties involved. This allows for improved efficiency and risk management in real-time. Unlike other platforms, VAKT’s application is decentralized. The details of bilateral transactions are not accessible to the platform but only to the trading partners with contractual rights to see these details.
Key Executives
Etienne Amic, CEO
Amic traded commodities as a managing director at Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. and J.P. Morgan Chase. In addition to Vortexa, a global crude oil and refined products cargo and analytics company, he co-founded CommodiTech Ventures, which finances next-generation commodity technology and business models.
Frances Dean, COO
Frances Dean is an operations-focused business transformation expert. He focuses on people and process leadership to turn around complex operational functions from the inside out to reduce risks, get buy-in, and lower costs.
Bart Bream, CTO
Bart served as CTO of Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. for two years and as Executive Director, European Head of IT Development, Global Oil, at Castleton Commodities International before joining VAKT. During his 11 years at Morgan Stanley, he served as Executive Director of Commodities Technology.
Richard James, CFO
Richard James is an alumnus of Auckland University. Before joining VAKT Global Ltd., he worked as a financial consultant for Tonkolili Iron Ore (SD Steel Group) and as a financial controller/FP&A manager for African Minerals.
Stephanie Trabia, CCO
Stephanie Trabia was the CEO of ICE UK Ltd., an electronic trading company for natural gas, power, metals, and oil markets, before joining VAKT Global Ltd. as Head of European Sales. Stephanie helped ICE acquire the International Petroleum Exchange in London, where Brent is listed in the European crude oil benchmark. She later joined MFGlobal to set up an OTC oil derivatives desk in broking.
Products & Services
VAKT offers solutions for privacy, integrity, and availability in the notoriously slow and complicated world of commodity post-trade processing in a distributed ecosystem on a private blockchain network. These solutions are meant to eliminate the mistakes, delays, and losses often caused by paper-based systems.
vSure
vSure automates the process of confirming and recapping physical oil trades that move via water transportation. This helps avoid disputes and streamlines contract management, hedging, and billing for a better cash flow and more opportunities to trade.
vLogistics
VLogistics offers a streamlined logistics planning, approvals, and record-keeping solution. The platform allows all partners to access a standardised system and stay on the same page with their logistics processes. By digitising trade records, vLogistics makes tracking and managing every aspect of the logistics process easy.
vTerminals
VAKT’s connections can improve the efficiency of terminal operations by sending nominations directly to the chosen software in a standardized format and clearly communicate any changes to previously made nominations. This allows terminals to efficiently plan for ship arrivals and maximize their capacity.
Related News
- Digital confirmation system is introduced to oil trading in the sea, 21 September 2022
VAKTs platform allows for the complete digitization of seaborne oil trading confirmations. Two major oil trading companies, Gunvor and TotalEnergies Trading, are already using VAKT’s system, which replaces manual processes like paper contracts and email. This marks a significant industry shift towards digital solutions. - Argus and S&P Global invest in VAKT, an oil blockchain that’s making plans for tokenization, 10 June, 2022
VAKT received investments from the two pricing firms, Argus Media and S&P Global Commodity Insights. BP, Shell, Gunvor, Koch, Mercuria, and leading banks are also shareholders in VAKT. In 2021, IHS Markit (now part of S&P Global) invested quietly in VAKT. The platform has raised a total of $57 million.
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