Visible vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen sharply. Producers are using ship to ship transfers, alternative ports and overland transport to maintain supply. Iraq, for example, recently trialled moving approximately 38,000 barrels of crude from southern fields to Kirkuk using 209 road tankers.
These are impressive logistical responses. But securing trucks, tankers or an alternative export route is only the beginning.
Product evacuation is not simply a transport problem.
An operator must still know:
- What product is available and where it is located,
- Who owns each volume
- Which customers and contractual commitments take priority
- Whether the product meets the required quality specification
- Where custody and title transfer occur
- How inventory in transit will be measured
- How losses, rejected loads and delivery shortfalls will be handled
- How carriers, terminals, partners and customers will be billed
- How the complete movement will be reconciled and audited
Trucks do not create a commercial operating model. Tankers do not reconcile themselves. A dashboard cannot determine ownership, entitlement or contractual liability unless the functional rules behind those decisions have been properly understood and configured.
This is why the choice of solution provider matters.
During normal operations, weaknesses in process knowledge can be hidden by established routines, spreadsheets and experienced people who understand how to work around the system.
During disruption, those weaknesses become visible very quickly.
A provider must understand how hydrocarbons are forecast, measured, allocated, nominated, transported, reconciled and settled. They must understand the relationship between the physical movement and its commercial consequences.
Technology then becomes the enabler.
A configurable platform can establish new loading locations, transport routes, delivery points, tariff structures and allocation rules. It can provide a controlled record from dispatch through custody transfer, inventory in transit, delivery confirmation and final settlement.
However, it can only do this effectively when the people implementing it understand the underlying operational and commercial processes.
At Elite Energy , we describe hydrocarbon management as a consistent and repeatable way to forecast, measure, allocate and optimise production, tracking every molecule from the reservoir to the point of sale.
That definition becomes even more important when the normal point of sale, transportation method or export route is suddenly no longer available.
Operators should be asking five questions now:
- Can we activate an alternative route without rebuilding our commercial systems?
- Do we know the minimum data and controls required at every new handover point?
- Can we preserve ownership, measurement and quality evidence throughout the journey?
- Can our allocation, contractual and settlement rules be changed quickly without losing auditability?
- Does our solution partner understand the functional process well enough to help us operate differently under pressure?
Operational resilience is not simply having a Plan B route.
It is being able to operate Plan B with the same safety, control and commercial integrity as Plan A.
That is where deep functional knowledge becomes every bit as important as the technology itself.
Sources: Reuters on current Strait of Hormuz movements and Reuters on Iraq’s road-transport trial.
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