Saudi Aramco buys stake in blockchain energy platform Vakt

London — Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures has invested $5 million in the Vakt blockchain platform, with Aramco Trading to become a future platform user, Vakt said Tuesday.

The digital platform, which handles post-trade processing in the North Sea BFOET crude oil market, counts BP, Equinor and Shell among its 12 existing shareholders. In January last year, Chevron, Total and Reliance joined the investor group.

Hans Middelthon, MD of SAEV Europe, said the platform had the potential to digitize "what is currently a very manual process and be truly transformative to end users and customers."

The deal would see Aramco Trading become a user of the platform, bringing its own North Sea trading volumes and adding to Vakt's "high market share", Vakt said.

"The investment will help Vakt with further development of the platform and expansion into new markets – particularly into Asia," the company said.

There was no update Monday on Vakt's plans to extend its post-trade reconciliation services to US crude oil pipelines and Northwest Europe refined product barges.

Ultimately the platform aims to support any number of physically traded energy markets, it has said.

It manages physical energy transactions from trade entry to final settlement, eliminating reconciliation and paper-based processes. It does not involve the trade itself.