Zeeland, Netherlands, October 3:  Zeeland Refinery has launched CargoDocs for Barges, a system developed by essDOCS (essDOCS) allowing for the electronic nomination of barges between counterparties and issuance of electronic sailing advices and barge documents by terminals in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) market.

Zeeland Refinery created a customized interface which allows nominations to be received directly within the company’s mass balance system. This is the first multi-party, electronic interface at a refinery or terminal in the ARA market and the first time that loading details have been distributed automatically from a loading terminal to all participants in the trade chain.

Zeeland Refinery’s Ann Veraverbeke, Manager Valorization, says “The move to eNominations  via the CargoDocs process brings Zeeland Refinery a step forward in electronic handling of their logistic processes.  After completing a comprehensive test phase, the nominations for export by barges will from now on be processed via the essDOCS platform interfacing with the refinery’s logistic system.  The different teams of LITASCO Group (LUKOIL International trading arm), Zeeland Refinery and essDOCS have been working closely together to make this successful.  At Zeeland Refinery, we are looking forward to benefiting from the efficiency gains in the electronic nomination and documentation process and thank the project team for their efforts.”

LITASCO successfully used CargoDocs for electronic barge nominations unilaterally for over 18 months before Zeeland Refinery developed the interface to accept nominations to their refinery IT system.

William Harwood, Head of Operations, LITASCO SA, says “LITASCO is pushing forward electronic solutions in the ARA barge market to modernize the way we do business. Electronic nominations transfer information as data packages, cutting out double input and summary spreadsheets. That enables the Company to have live information about a nomination once it has been sent, accepted, rejected or amended.  Most importantly for prompt invoicing and cash flow it gives immediate notification of barge loadings, not only for the first receiver, but right down the trade chain.”

Having previously established the industry-accepted, global solution for electronic Bills of Lading in the tanker market, essDOCS entered the ARA barge market in 2011 at the urging of key industry players. Traders, fed up with delays in communication, numerous nomination errors, and general duplication of work effort, turned to essDOCS to streamline the process. CargoDocs for Barges brings standardization, straight through processing and transparency of information to the market as a whole and turns a tedious and time consuming manual process into the ease of clicking a button. By dematerializing nomination and cargo information, CargoDocs allows data to flow seamlessly between multiple systems such as scheduling, trading, operations and demurrage.

Cynthia Worley, Head of Energy at essDOCS comments, “We are delighted with the launch of CargoDocs at Zeeland and the continued support of LITASCO.  The growth of CargoDocs for Barges in the past year has been astounding, and is set to continue with a lineup of additional traders and terminals in the process of adopting the solution. It is increasingly clear that the needs of the energy sector are well matched by the solutions provided by essDOCS.  We will continue to work hard to understand the operational frustrations experienced by the industry in order to build and improve on our solutions.”

About

Zeeland Refinery is located in the biggest oil refining and trading hub in north-west Europe, the ARA region (Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp).  Zeeland Refinery has access to the Maasvlakte oil terminal, a vast infrastructure for crude oil, which has 4 mln. tons capacity.

In 2009, LUKOIL signed an agreement with TOTAL SA for acquisition of a 45% stake in the TRN Refinery which was then renamed Zeeland Refinery.  The refinery is one of Europe’s top performing refineries finan­cially and has a capacity of approximately 9.5 million tons per year.  The refinery can process significant quantities of LUKOIL crude oils, straight-run fuel and VGO, as well as a wide variety of third-party crudes and feedstocks.

LITASCO SA (LUKOIL International Trading and Supply Company) is the exclusive international marketing and trading company of JSC LUKOIL Oil Company.

It is one of the world's major traders of crude oil and refined petroleum products and deals with more than two thousand suppliers and customers, including the world's major oil corporations.  With head office in Geneva, Switzerland, and our additional trading and business development offices worldwide, LITASCO SA manages LUKOIL's global crude oil and petroleum products supply, marketing and trading needs.  The LITASCO Group has offices in Germany, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Sweden, United Arab Emirates United States, The Netherlands as well as a representative office in China.

JSC LUKOIL is one of the world’s leading vertically integrated oil & gas companies working in more than 38 countries worldwide. The main activities of the Company are exploration and production of oil & gas, production of petroleum products and petrochemicals, and marketing of these outputs. Most of the Company’s exploration and production activity is located in Russia, and its main resource base is in Western Siberia.

JSC LUKOIL owns modern refineries, gas processing and petrochemical plants located in Russia, Europe and nearby countries. The Company’s production is marketed in Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, nearby countries and the USA.

essDOCS

essDOCS delivers industry-led electronic shipping and trade document / data solutions which improve physical and financial operations, compliance and traceability. Our global leading solution, CargoDocs, offers electronic bills of lading (eB/L)  and supporting documents for the Tanker, Barge, Bulker and/or Liner markets.  For more information visit www.essdocs.com or email us at media@essdocs.com.