Oryx Energies SA (Oryx Energies) is a group of companies, headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland) and majority-owned by the private investment group AOG. It is present today in 17 countries and is one of the largest and longest established independent providers of energy products, including Fuels, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and lubricants, and services, including industry and maritime operations, in Africa. The group employs approximately 1'600 people and market 12 million Mts of products per year.
Addax Energy SA(Addax Energy), Oryx Energies’ trading arm, has been responding to the evolving energy needs of the African continent for over 30 years.
01/ The trading team sources crude oil and refined products on the open market from all over the world, and supplies them to Oryx Energies' downstream activities, as well as third parties.
02/ The bunkering team supplies fuels, marine lubricants and other specialised services, offshore and on the high seas across subSaharan Africa. They service commercial vessels, fishing fleets and all types of offshore platforms, leveraging OryxEnergies’ facilities at strategic locations along the coasts of Africa, ensuring a seamless service from product sourcing to delivery.
As the group’s trading and logistics arm, Addax Energy is the beneficiary of large quantities of export LCs issued by banks on behalf of offtakers. They sought a tool which would accelerate and streamline these exchanges and remove the need for manual data entry.
01/ Addax Energy creates customised invoices for each transaction based on the terms / data from the financing instrument (LC), hence a lot of invoice data would need to be updated manually.
02/ The predominant tools used were email, Excel, and paper documents with wet-ink signatures.
03/ Previously lenders would advise Addax Energy of issuance via email, after which their systems and corresponding documents would need to be updated manually.
04/ The team needed to engage in 50 such negotiations per week. AddaxEnergy was looking for a provider to help automate these information flows and facilitate a digitalised relationship with the banks.
“The export flows were particularly painful, which is why this was the first target in our integration roadmap.We had more than 800presentations per quarter with the banks, each of which was taking at least 4 hours.”
Ignacio Romero, LC Manager
Addax Energy
Komgo’s digital trade finance portal, Konsole, connects corporates and banks in an authenticated, structured data exchange around the full life-cycle of a trade finance instrument.
01/ Workflow coverage includes documentary instructions (LCs,SBLCs, Guarantees), release instructions for storage/goods; and stock reconciliation and reporting.
02/ Konsole provides a secure communication channel which leverages Komgo’s Network of verified digital actors to generate binding electronic instructions, recognised by the industry’s largest banks.
03/ Defined signing rules and message routing enable any organisation to fully digitalise their internal and external workflows, removing the need for paper documents and wet-ink signatures
In addition to providing an elegant user interface, Konsole’s widely recognised data standards and open API architecture allows banks and corporates to interface with their own systems, enabling data to flow seamlessly between them without any human intervention.
01/ In this case, the bank advises the export LC via Konsole. AddaxEnergy’s invoicing system receives the LC and automatically updates the applicant details and required documents.
02/ The system manages any amendments and generates the invoice based on the applicant /LC details. Addax Energy sends the documents as per the LC terms to the bank via Konsole, and receives payment notification.
03/ In the case of this particular flow, the advising bank is also fully integrated with Konsole, which makes the process much faster and more transparent.
04/ As the bank receives documents from Addax Energy, their system is updated and this status is visible in real-time in Oryx’s system: line planned, negotiated, accepted, completed.
“Before Konsole, a lot of invoice data had to be processed manually. Now we don’t need to touch the invoice. We put the documents as per the LC terms in Konsole, and the bank receives them. This has brought a lot of comfort to our audit and compliance departments.”
Ignacio Romero, LC Manager
Addax Energy
Thanks to a rapid implementation supported by Komgo’s Professional Services team, the project went from scoping to being live in production in just 6 months.
01/ Addax Energy didn’t want to start with the easy flows. They had clear objectives to improve their most manual and painful process first, which was on the export LC side.
02/ In addition to operational gains like time savings and reduction of manual errors, the project also delivered key strategic objectives including more control, tighter security and a trusted image.
03/ The primary gains are felt by theLC desk and trade finance department, which have seen a 50% reduction in time needed to manage one presentation under an export LC.
04/ From a strategic perspective, Konsole integration has helped to ensure that information sent and received is both timely and accurate, improving the relationship with lending partners.
“This was a sophisticated project with multiple parties involved. There was Addax and Komgo, but also the bank and our ETRM software provider.The beauty was having Komgo as a trusted third party in the middle, managing the project and ensuring timely follow-up.”
Ignacio Romero, LC Manager
Addax Energy
