A single, unified and timely natural gas solution

Midstream marketers and refiners need a view of positions across the gas processing value chain for physical transactions, as well as any financial hedges included in the portfolio. However these transactions are often processed in separate systems. As a result, data needs to be extracted at a granular level from each system and then standardized and integrated into consolidated reporting tools. Should an issue need to be addressed, it means going back to the source system to analyze the problem.

Since refiners and marketers need to deliver the right product at the right time to the right location, purchases need to be made by traders many months in advance, and then schedulers need to manage logistics and transportation either by voyage or pipeline. But schedulers and traders often share information in an ad-hoc fashion making this process harder than it needs to be. Additionally, schedulers need to closely monitor the supply chain to ensure product is on schedule for target delivery dates – and ad-hoc planning makes this difficult.

NGLs are subject to complex pricing and logistics as they are processed, fractionated, transported (in various modes), stored and refined. The many forms and methods that this product experiences in its lifecycle until actually delivery creates enormous complexity. For this reason, many organizations leverage two different software packages for managing the process, creating the need to enter data into multiple systems and to manually reconcile them in order to remain current and accurate.

Inventory of the various carbon components needs to be managed at an accurate and reliable manner. Storage capacity at each facility, as well as the delivery commitments are not understood at a consolidated level to ensure that inventory is managed for full optimization. Information sharing can be incomplete and ad-hoc. In addition, schedulers need to closely monitor the supply chain to ensure product is available and on schedule for target delivery dates.

Trading and scheduling quantity updates, location changes, matching tickets and reconciling contracts are all issues that prevent settlements from being accurate and timely. Natural gas liquids are subject to a wide range of costs including transportation, processing, fractionating, refining and possibly product blending, before eventually being sold. In order to properly settle with counterparties, companies need to track and manage these costs. However in many cases these costs are in desperate systems or managed in spreadsheets across different parts of the business creating unnecessary obstacles.