Midstream & downstream

From deal
to rack.

The commercial systems behind crude, natural gas, NGLs and refined products. Everything that happens to a barrel or a gigajoule after the deal is struck: scheduling, movement, inventory and settlement, and the connections to the pipelines, terminals, measurement and accounting around them.

We have run ETRM programs across all four commodities, from documenting capabilities and processes to specifying the integrations. We work on your side of the table, not the vendor’s.

Where it breaks

The ETRM is rarely the problem. The boundaries around it are.

Most of what goes wrong happens where a record crosses from one system to another, and a person has quietly become the connection.

Pipeline → ETRM

“Confirmations are re-keyed from the portal.”

Nominations change through the month and the book catches up by hand. Apportionment turns into a scramble to re-home barrels in a spreadsheet.

Terminal → ETRM

“The book and the terminal disagree on inventory.”

Lifting data arrives late or as a file, exchange balances live in a tracker, and gain or loss gets written off because nobody can trace it.

Measurement → settlement

“A closed month keeps re-opening.”

Prior-period adjustments and equalization arrive weeks after the invoice, and every one is worked by hand against deals that have moved on.

ETRM → ledger

“Accounting does not trust the commercial numbers.”

Accruals, actuals and inventory valuation are rebuilt outside the system, so month-end runs long and the two closes never quite agree.

Acquisition → one book

“The transition agreement ends and we do not own our data.”

Two systems, two charts of accounts, and a date after which the seller stops answering. Nobody has listed what must come across.

Vendor → program

“The implementation is green on paper.”

Change requests keep arriving, testing runs on the integrator’s scenarios, and the schedulers have stopped attending.

Four commodities

The same lifecycle, four different ways.

Every commodity goes from deal to settlement, and no two make the trip the same way. A crude barrel is apportioned, a gas day is not a calendar day, an NGL barrel is worth the sum of its components, and a refined products exchange leaves a balance owed in both directions. Then the border changes it again.

See the commodity matrix

Start with a 45-minute briefing.

Bring the program, the proposal or the month-end that will not close. We will tell you honestly where to start.