Blockchains – achieving consensus in oil and gas business processes
Scott WallerThe APPEA Journal 61(2) 522-525 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ20058
Accepted: 15 May 2021 Published: 2 July 2021
Abstract
As the oil and gas industry comes under increasing pressure from government, activist groups and society on carbon offsetting, a trend that is building is the disclosure of consistent, comparable and reliable data. As companies develop their abatement plans, it is critical that the accounting and reporting of activities are made transparent or companies risk not achieving the social license to operate they are aiming to build. This proposal will discuss the opportunity for operators to use blockchain to digitise the information and processes that operate between unincorporated joint ventures, companies and third parties they deal with – customers, suppliers, government and society. At its heart, blockchain is a distributed ledger that offers the potential to make processes between companies more efficient through standardised processes and trusted data; in the same way companies have implemented internal Enterprise Resource Planning systems to achieve this goal within their own entities. The current landscape of systems and processes has been set up to optimise internally, but when processes cross company boundaries, they execute via email and analogue processes. Gartner predicts that by 2030 $3.1 trillion of goods and services will be tracked by blockchain technology. This is a technology that will revolutionise supply chains and company-to-company interactions. The energy sector has embraced contractors and suppliers who support engineering, operations, maintenance, services and supply of parts. Blockchain is therefore a technology that offers great opportunity in optimising in-bound supply chain and increasingly will be required to communicate on their outbound product with more transparent and trusted data enabled by blockchain technology.
Keywords: distributed ledger, blockchain, joint venture, cost allocation audit, JV audit, smart contracts, litigation, contract management, digital, digitisation, transformation, carbon offset.
Scott Waller has spent over a decade in the oil and gas industry, working in technology functions helping to drive digital and transformation agendas within Finance, Capital Projects and Production and Engineering business units. Through this experience, he has witnessed the complexity of the problems being faced by industry. In 2017, Scott joined EY where he leads EY’s Oceania blockchain business that is focussed on supporting clients with blockchain and digital assets-related trust services. Scott has built a reputation as being a leader and innovator in developing digital solutions that apply the transformative effects of distributed ledgers, smart contracts, digital assets and other emerging technology to solve industry problems. Scott also leads EY’s Oceania assurance advanced technology programme and is disrupting EY from within through running an internal start-up programme that creates digital products and services that enable EY to deliver to clients through product-based technology services. |
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