Wholly owned by the Government of Oman, OQT was incorporated in2006 in Dubai, as a joint venture between Oman Oil Company and a leading international energy trader.
01/ Mandate. As the country’s international commodities trading arm, OQT is the exclusive market facing partner to OQ portfolio businesses, as well as a significant offtaker of Omani hydrocarbons from non-OQ owned assets.
02/ Operations. With a global network of offices in key hubs (Dubai, Houston, London, Muscat,Rotterdam, Shanghai, Singapore), the group trades approximately 35 million tonnes of energy products per year, including a significant portfolio of third party volumes.
03/ Products. Products include crude oil, refined products, petrochemicals, LNG, fertilisers and emissions.
04/ Financing. A core part of OQT’s activities are financed via a USD 1.2bn syndicated borrowing base facility (BBF) managed by ING Bank as Security Agent.
Under their BBF, OQT is required to produce Utilization Requests (URs) before drawing under the facility or opening an import LC ; and to produce Notices of Assignment (NOAs) to ensure that proceeds from sales invoices raised are appropriately assigned to the Security Agent.
01/ URs and NOAs are routine documents which mostly follow a standard format, but need to be customized with some specific transaction details.
02/ Data stored in OQT’s internal systems needed to be copy pasted manually into each document, and then sent via email to the bank (UR) or buyer (NOA).
03/ Signature requirements and the large volume of data and documents led to an inefficient process involving multiple teams and avoidable, manual work.These process inefficiencies resulted in consumption of high value business resources that could be better utilised elsewhere.
”There was a lot of manual work : We had to print, sign and stamp the LC wording. Then we had to prepare, print, sign and stamp a UR with identical wording.We put both documents together and scanned it to the bank… Then the bank had to check, and copy-paste it back into their systems.”
Edwin Van Baaren, Senior Trade Finance Officer
OQT
In early 2022, OQT started to digitalise their invoices using Komgo’s Trakk solution. Trakk delivers protected, smart documents which can be sent via email and easily verified by recipients without needing to perform a call-back.
01/ Securing The Invoicing Process : Trakk ensures that banking information and other details cannot be changed, and can be verified independently by recipients at any time.
02/ Automating Workflows : Trakk includes the ability to add electronic audit trails (digital signatures) and embedded metadata which can be extracted and read by other systems, allowing information from invoices or other documents to be extracted and used to populate specific templates.
03/ Powering Transparency : Trakk gives live visibility on the entire receivables book, avoiding the need for manual spot checks to confirm appropriate assignment.
”Komgo allowed us to automatically generate these documents based on the information we put in the system.This helps to avoid manual errors, and we spend much less time preparing the document. We also save time on signatures and assignment to the bank, which now happens automatically. ”
Edwin Van Baaren, Senior Trade Finance Officer
OQT
Komgo supports the role of the Agent Bank(s)by providing transparency in the facility and authenticating the security (collateral) pledged under the BBF, while reducing the burden of manual work placed on OQT by these increased reporting requirements.
1. OQT prepares their sales invoice and registers it on Trakk.
2. Komgo reads the invoice, extracts the relevant data, automatically generates an NOA, and sends it to the of taker.
3. Komgo shares both the NOA and corresponding invoice with the Security Agent, who can see that the of taker has been notified in the electronic audit trail.
1. OQT agrees the LC wording via Komgo’s Konsole, and pushes it to the bank in the form of a new LC Import opening request.
2. Komgo reads the key LC information (amount, quantity, counter party etc.), automatically generates the corresponding UR and attaches it to the LCIM requestas a digitally signed instruction to the bank.
1. OQT receives invoices from their clients, for which they need to produce URs. They enter all the details of the invoices in their system, and export it in CSV format.
2. Komgo reads the CSV, extracts the relevant data and automatically generates the UR linked to a specific invoice.
3. The UR and accompanying invoices are registered on Trakk, and automatically shared with the bank.
The automated process is a lot faster for operators as several manual steps have been removed. The deployment is also bringing comfort to the banks by increasing transactional security without creating the need for additional, manual checks.
”Komgo is very straightforward and easy to use. All the useful features are there, and there isn’t one unnecessary click. The system has everything we need, and it does things the right way.”
Edwin Van Baaren, Senior Trade Finance Officer
OQT
”We need to promote an industry that can attract new liquidity.We need the help of technology to reinforce transactional security through greater transparency.”
Sam Naylor, CFO
OQT
01/ No Copy-Pasting : Reduces errors and saves time needed to prepare the document.Banks receive information / data directly in their systems.
02/ Signatures & Assignment : No need to print, sign, stamp and send instructions to the bank, as this now happens automatically. No need for the bank to check signatures.
03/ Removes Duplication : No need to prepare the wording of the LC, and then a parallel UR document with identical information.
04/ Live Access To Documents : By registering their sales invoices on Trakk and digitally assigning them to theSecurity Agent, OQT is providing visibility over the entire receivables pool which is one of the main pillars of collateral for the banks.
”There is also a lot of benefit for theSecurity Agent, because they don’t have to check our signatures and copy-paste the data back into their systems. At any time the bank has access to all the documents. They see the invoice and know that the NOA is in place, which gives them more comfort."
Edwin Van Baaren, Senior Trade Finance Officer
OQT
