“We needed to replace our present systems with a system that could improve the efficiency of our critical processes and keep pace with the needs of our growing company. Allegro 8 will allow us to optimize our operations with credit, contract and data management, exposure monitoring, simulation tools and flexible reporting.”

Eesti Energia

Logistics Solutions PDF Print E-mail

LogisticsComplete management of multi-mode commodity transport

Managing the complexities of physical commodity movements can be a challenging and costly aspect of business for energy companies, especially if your operations involve global activity and multiple modes of transport. Companies need the tools to effectively manage physical positions and the transportation and storage of crude oil, refined products, coal, agricultural products, and others assets. The nuances of each commodity, combined with the logistics of transport across multiple geographies and various carrier modes such as truck, rail, pipeline, barge, and vessel, can create many manual tasks, redundancies, inaccuracies and inefficiencies that can ultimately compromise profits and expose companies to a myriad of risks.

Product Overview

Allegro’s Logistics component provides simplified, automated processes for routing bulk and liquid commodities across multiple carrier modes. Companies benefit from transparency into their logistics operations which enables risk mitigation and optimal decision making. Logistics 8.1 tracks all counterparties, contracts, shipments, tariffs, fees, and product quality. Allegro’s single platform enables efficient workflows that support schedulers and logistics personnel in achieving timely and accurate data entry, scheduling, and actualization.

Whatever the commodity or carrier mode, Logistics 8.1 provides visibility into positions, inventory management, exchange balances, product qualities, demurrage, and shipment costs to support the optimization of asset utilization. This information can also be filtered to view data for a single commodity, carrier mode, or geographical region to evaluate segments of activity. Intermodal routing automates shipments across multiple carrier modes which helps control timelines and costs with the ability to anticipate delays and react to inventory shortages and bottlenecks.

Key Features

Schedule commodities across multiple carrier modes including pipeline, truck, rail, barge and vessel including bookouts, distributions and inventory transfers

Automate the creation of shipments using pre-defined routes including intermodal shipments

Capture pipeline cycles, batches, custody chains, and perform distributions among buyers and sellers

Capture and settle all fees and services related to the transportation of these commodities

Capture and settle tariffs based on origin/destination, distance, tiered quantities and rates based on quantity and distance matrix

Calculate demurrage and despatch on shipments and comprehensive claims management through the negotiation and settlement process

Calculate shipment valuation including commodity and related shipping costs

Calculate and evaluate physical exchange balances at the time of scheduling

Capture actual product qualities and settle premium/penalty adjustments

Calculate coal quality cross basis values for air dried (AD), dry ash free (DAF), dry basis (DB), gross as received (GAR) and net as received (NAR)

Link shipments to freight contracts and settle freight based on Worldscale flat rates or tiered rates including calculating deadfreight

Link shipments to storage contracts and settle monthly storage rates including tiered throughput rates

Integrate bill of lading (BOL) measurements from third party sources such as Telvent/DTN

Report daily inventory by product, location, tank and pile

Evaluate position from trade entry, confirmation, nomination and actualization

Calculate tank tickets based on tank strapping measurements

Track NGL mix and components and track inventory by component

Aggregate wellhead crude production and automate shipping from wellhead to downstream pipeline connections

In the following sections, the functionality and business benefits provided by Allegro Logistics 8.1 are segmented by mode of transport:

Truck

Tracking and managing truck movements can be difficult due to the large number of small transactions as trucks continually load wellhead crude. Producers may experience significant challenges in managing inventories of NGL at the plant tailgate and terminal operators must ensure adequate supply for their rack activity. Allegro’s Logistics 8.1 helps companies efficiently manage the scheduling and transportation for crude oil, refined products, and NGLs shipped by road.

Schedulers have the ability to view available product quantities by location, evaluate minimum, maximum and target inventory levels, match supply and market volumes and automate truck shipments. Allegro captures the details of each load including driver, truck, product, location and mileage. Tariff rates can be calculated based on the distance and quantity of each load while capturing applicable fees associated with the shipment.

This component captures tank tickets and calculates ticket quantities based on opening and closing tank gauge measurements. In concert with Allegro’s Settlement and System Administration components, Logistics 8.1 provides easy integration of bill of lading (BOL) data measured at the rack by sources like Telvent/DTN. The data can be electronically captured, validated, priced and invoiced for straight through processing facilitated by web services.

Logistics 8.1 captures product qualities and automatically calculates price adjustments according to premium and penalty rules defined by the trader. Schedulers can also choose alternate products and locations for delivery as defined by the trader and grade/location differentials are automatically calculated.

Pipeline

The pipeline functionality within Logistics 8.1 helps customers automate and manage the scheduling, shipment and actualization for all liquid commodities moved by pipeline. Pipeline schedulers deal with a highly complex set of data when managing the daily operations of trading
and scheduling on pipelines. Multiple segments, carriers, commodities and grades along with extensive fees, tariffs, and surcharges combine to make the planning and scheduling of pipeline shipments a very complex and time consuming process.

With Logistics 8.1, pipeline schedulers can create and store pre-defined pipeline routes and shipment plans with associated information such as product, carrier, origin and destination locations. Upstream quantities can be aggregated from multiple sources and scheduled in bulk to downstream carriers and locations. Users can efficiently manage the creation of shipments based on those pre-defined routes and plans.

Fees such as pipeline tariffs, truck unloading fees, and gravity surcharges on wellhead shipments are automatically captured for settlement reducing time and effort spent on redundant, manual processes. With Logistics 8.1, users can track best available physical positions, evaluate exchange balances and accurately settle these transactions.

Rail

Logistics 8.1 simplifies the complexity of rail movements by helping companies manage scheduling, transportation and actualization activities for energy commodities shipped by rail including coal, NGLs, crude oil and refined products. Logistics 8.1 provides visibility into product positions and inventory quantities by location so users can match supply and market positions, create schedules, and manage rail shipments. Logistics 8.1 allows users to define unit trains or choose the number of necessary railcars.

Allegro captures all product shipment data, including railcar numbers, status, loading and unloading dates and time, agents, inspectors and terminals. The component automatically calculates applicable fees while allowing users to capture events that occur at the loading and discharge points. Product quality data is also captured and tracked, allowing the system to automatically calculate price adjustments according to user-defined escalation and de-escalation rules.

Logistics 8.1 captures and settles rail tariff fees, including fees based on mileage, such as fuel surcharge fees. The component also manages bookouts, net outs, distribution and custody chains. The ability to track estimated and actual delivery times for each shipment and provide automated calculation of associated fees enables cost effective scheduling and timely, accurate settlement.

Logistics 8.1 supports superior decision making with visibility into positions and product movements at every step of the supply chain along with enhanced reporting tools.

Barge/Vessel

Logistics 8.1 also supports customers in the scheduling, shipment and actualization of energy commodities that are transported by vessel or barge. Managing commodity movements via vessel or barge involves a vast number of documents, fees and inventory planning. Logistics 8.1
allows users to manage each movement of individual barge or vessel. The component stores and tracks all necessary information including details on status, agents, inspectors, terminals, and product quality data.

Schedulers can view available inventory and trade positions by product, location and counterparty to evaluate opening inventory, current supply and market positions and available quantities. This information can be readily used to match supply volume with market volume, validate
position tolerances, evaluate exchange balances, assign custody chains, and create nominations for physical shipments and bookouts. Bookouts are handled seamlessly, matching long and short positions in the bookout and automatically actualizing these positions for settlement.

Users are able to capture all shipment costs including inspection fees, agency fees, freight, insurance, custom fees and taxes and run a valuation of the shipment inclusive of these costs and fees. In addition to the port log of the events of the shipment, Logistics 8.1 allows users to capture events associated with the pricing of cargoes, e.g. around the BOL or notice of readiness (NOR).

Logistics 8.1 allows users to capture allowed lay time and terms for demurrage and despatch for each leg of the shipment, capture port time logs, and calculate, create and settle demurrage and despatch claims. The claims management view allows users to easily manage open and settled demurrage claims, track open claims through the negotiation process, and automatically create fees for final settlement.