Oil and gas e-business is hovering between dot com demise and breakthrough. Trade-Ranger, the global online procurement exchange, launched last year by several oil and petrochemical companies, is hanging in there and has successfully closed second-round financing from shareholders Dow Chemical, Conoco, ENI, Phillips, Repsol YPF, Shell, Statoil, TotalFinaElf, Unocal and others.
Farley
CEO Claire Farley said, “This new equity, in combination with current buyer membership subscriptions, puts us on a solid path to self-financing by the fourth quarter of 2002.”
‘Growth’
Trade-Ranger claims rapid ‘growth’ in recent months, with suppliers of goods and services signing up ‘at a rate of 25 to 50 per week’ according to Farley. 684 suppliers from North America, Europe and Asia have signed membership agreements with Trade-Ranger and receive basic services, including implementation resources and electronic transaction ability, without charge.
Buyers
Trade-Ranger’s buyer base has grown with non-shareholders joining the exchange as part of their overall e-procurement strategies, bringing the number of buyer members to 20.
Leggate
Shareholder and founder BP is not taking part in the re-financing. In a separate interview with Business Week last month, BP e-business guru John Leggate (a.k.a. ‘Shiny Brain’) said that in 2000, BP set out to move $25 billion worth (95%) of its procurement to the web. In the event, only 4% of BP’s procurement is on-line – which nonetheless represents savings of $100 million to BP according to Leggate.
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