This fireside chat recap is from Day 5 of FreightWaves’ Global Supply Chain Week. Day 5 focuses on energy, chemicals and mining.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Field services automation using blockchain for oilfield logistics
DETAILS: Rana Basu, whose company Ondiflo has been one of the leaders in bringing commercial blockchain applications to the oil patch, talks about the progress distributed-ledger technology has made in gaining wider acceptance.
SPEAKER: Rana Basu, chief operating officer, Ondiflo
BIO: Basu is a commodities trading risk-management and systems expert and a blockchain evangelist for the oil, petrochemicals and chemicals trading and logistics space. He orchestrated the first oil and gas consortium based out of Geneva to work on reducing the friction in oil logistics using blockchain.
KEY QUOTES FROM BASU:
“In the oil patch, there is a significant portion of logistical activity that is very repetitive. What can we do to get certainty on transactions and thereby be able to pay for these transactions? I think what blockchain has brought in is the aspect of trust. By having an immutable distributed ledger, it allows parties to stream in data from the field as services are being delivered. What Ondiflo is doing is locking this data into that immutable ledger in such a manner that we have legally enforceable automation.”
“If I were operating my own database, I could make changes to my database and wipe out my fingerprints. Blockchain prevents that. I think that’s why we are seeing a gradual shift with enterprises recognizing the differential benefits of making this technology part of their stack.”
“It is only by bringing together sectors — not individual companies but sectors — that we can unleash the multiple that blockchain and these emerging technologies can bring.”