Computer method and apparatus for petroleum trading and logistics

• US 20020049667A1
• Filed: 09/07/2001
• Published: 04/25/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Aspentech Corporation
• Original Assignee: Petro Vantage, Inc.
• Inventors: Folger, Scott D., Logan, Bruce A., Stommel, James Harrison, Collins, Sean Patrick, Kidd, Nigel, Moore, Charles C., Johnson, Nigel, Doyle, Stephen J., Dietrich, Donald A., Evans, Michael P., Allen, Michael D., Hakimattar, Linus, Navani, Girish, Patel, Vip, Bartel, Wayne C., Mahalec, Vladimir, Rosen, Ken, Cohn, Barry H., Zayadine, Khaled
• Application Number:
  US09/950,291
• Publication Number:
  US 20020049667A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

The present invention provides software that includes various computer tools for the different individuals (crude and product traders, planners/analysts, brokers, schedulers, vessel owners/brokers, terminal operators, pipeline operators and cash brokers, etc.) involved in crude oil trading. In the preferred embodiment, the invention system is an on-line, real-time user interactive software system. The invention system includes three pieces of functionality: decision support tools: a broad set of powerful tools for accurate, on-the-fly deal evaluation and decision making including crude oil evaluation, product component blending and trading, arbitrage identification, transportation and vessel selection optimization. collaborative workflow environment: delivered via role-based consoles, this increases staff productivity by capturing the relationships between people, organizations, deal and deadlines to coordinate and synchronize the workflow within and between companies.

deal negotiation system: a secure and private environment for bid/offer transaction for physical petroleum commodity trading, seamlessly integrated with collaborative workflow and decision support tools.

One set of the computer tools assists the trader in evaluating deals. Another set of the computer tools assists the trader to collaborate with the rest of the commercial team and the external service providers. Yet another set of computer tools assists the trader to negotiate deals in a secure and private environment, enabling the trader to invite multiple participants to engage in bid/offer scenarios. Additionally, arbitrage analysis and domain-specific search engines are disclosed that support crude oil trading, refining and logistics.

Claims

1. In a network of computers, a method for evaluating, collaborating and negotiating crude oil, intermediates and refined products trading and logistics, comprising the steps of:

for a subject trade, providing trade data in electronic form, the trade data including indications of petroleum commodity, quantity and proposed trade recipients; and

electronically posting the trade data in different versions as a function of trade recipient, said posting at a host site in the network of computers, each proposed trade recipient being able to log into the host site to view a respective version of the trade data and respond thereto toward consummating a trade.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step of providing trade data includes indicating one of U.S. crude oil, international crude oil, U.S. product, international product and intermediate products as the petroleum commodity.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step of providing trade data includes indicating a general audience as at least a subset of the proposed trade recipients.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step of indicating includes indicating any combination of a general audience and certain specified end users in the computer network;

and

the step of posting displays one version of the trade data to the general audience and a different version of the trade data to at least one of the certain specified end users.

5. A method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the step of posting further displays respective different versions of the trade data to different certain-specified end users.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising providing computer automated analytical tools for enabling proposed trade recipients to analyze posted trades.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising providing vessel scheduling means for enabling trade recipients to couple vessel transportation costs for respective posted trades to each other.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising enabling instant messaging between a trade recipient and an originator of the subject trade.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8 wherein the step of electronically posting further includes displaying to the originator a log of instant messages per trade recipient.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising providing automated workflow management for a series of workflow tasks within a collaborative workflow environment.

33. The method of claim 1 wherein the petroleum products include specific grades of distillate and the linear program calculates the marginal value of each of the specific grades of distillate.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein the step of defining the arbitrage relationship further comprises using an interactive computer map to draw a between two geographical regions and selecting specific crude oil, intermediate feedstock and petroleum products as members of the arbitrage relationship.

36. The method of claim 34 wherein alarms and triggers are set to execute when the spread reaches, exceeds, or drops below a predefined limit.

38. The method of claim 37 wherein the domain is at least one of:

petroleum trading, refining or logistics.

11. A method of analyzing a crude oil trade deal in real-time on a computer network to determine a profit margin relative to a processing refinery, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to a client computer request, characteristics of the crude oil trade deal on a host computer;

conditioning the received characteristics as inputs to a linear program modeling a subject processing refinery;

executing the linear program on the host computer using the conditioned characteristics as the inputs to analyze the crude oil trade deal, including;

(a) executing the linear program such that the linear program is non-client computer resident;

(b) managing multiple execution instances of the non-client computer resident linear program using an active status signal;

(c) communicating, using standard network protocols, between the client computer and the host computer;

(d) downloading petroleum products pricing data from an online pricing information provider for use in analyzing the crude oil trade deal; and

(e) producing an output for indicating the profit margin of the crude oil trade deal with respect to the subject processing refinery based on the analysis of the crude oil trade deal.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein any of the inputs is overridable.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

accessing dynamic databases including petroleum product specifications as inputs to the linear program.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving the characteristics automatically, as a trade object, from an integrated deal negotiation application and the output is communicated back to the integrated deal negotiation application, such that the deal negotiation application is integrated with the method of analyzing a crude oil trade deal.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein any of the inputs is overridable.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

accessing dynamic databases including petroleum product specifications as inputs to the linear program.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving the characteristics automatically, as a trade object, from an integrated deal negotiation application and the output is communicated back to the integrated deal negotiation application, such that the deal negotiation application is integrated with the method of analyzing a crude oil trade deal.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein any of the inputs is overridable.

21. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

accessing dynamic databases including petroleum product specifications as inputs to the linear program.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving tat the characteristics automatically, as a trade object, from an integrated deal negotiation application and the output is communicated back to the integrated deal negotiation application, such that the deal negotiation application is integrated with the method of analyzing an intermediate feedstock trade deal.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein any of the inputs is overridable.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

accessing dynamic databases including petroleum product specifications as inputs to the linear program.

26. The method of claim 23 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving the characteristics automatically, as a trade object, from an integrated deal negotiation application and the output is communicated back to the integrated deal negotiation application, such that the deal negotiation application is integrated with the method of analyzing a composite of crude oils.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein any of the inputs is overridable.

29. The method of claim 27 further comprising:

accessing dynamic databases including petroleum product specifications as inputs to the linear program.

30. The method of claim 27 wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving the characteristics automatically, as a trade object, from an integrated deal negotiation application and the output is communicated back to the integrated deal negotiation application, such that the deal negotiation application is integrated with the method of analyzing a composite of crude oils.

31. The method of claim 27 wherein the petroleum products include specific grades of gasoline and the linear program calculates the marginal value of each of the specific grades of gasoline.

32. The method of claim 27 wherein the petroleum products include specific grades of fuel oil and the linear program calculates the marginal value of each of the specific grades of fuel oil.

15. A method of analyzing a crude oil trade deal in real-time on a computer network to determine a profit margin relative to various produceable petroleum product yields and qualities, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to a client computer request, characteristics of the crude oil trade deal on a host computer;

conditioning the received characteristics as inputs to a linear program, the linear program modeling yield and quality values for petroleum products produceable from crude oil represented by the crude oil trade deal;

executing the linear program on the host computer using the conditioned characteristics as the inputs to analyze the crude oil trade deal, including;

(a) executing the linear program such that the linear program is non-client computer resident;

(b) managing multiple execution instances of the non-client computer resident linear program using an active status signal;

(c) communicating, using standard network protocols, between the client computer and the host computer;

(d) downloading petroleum products pricing data from an online pricing information provider for use in analyzing the crude oil trade deal; and

(e) producing an output for indicating the profit margin of the crude oil trade deal with respect to the yield and quality values for petroleum products produceable based on the analysis of the crude oil trade deal.

19. A method of analyzing an intermediate feedstock trade deal in real-time on a computer network to determine compliance to a desired petroleum product specification, required volume and acquisition strategy, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to a client computer request, characteristics of the intermediate feedstock trade deal on a host computer;

conditioning the received characteristics as inputs to a linear program modeling a subject processing refinery;

executing the linear program on the host computer using the conditioned characteristics as the inputs to analyze the intermediate feedstock trade deal, the linear program modeling the petroleum product specification, required volume and acquisition strategy values for the intermediate feedstocks represented by the intermediate feedstock trade deal, including;

(a) executing the linear program such that the linear program is non-client computer resident;

(b) managing multiple execution instances of the non-client computer resident linear program using an active status signal;

(c) communicating, using standard network protocols, between the client computer and the host computer;

(d) downloading petroleum products pricing data from an online pricing information provider for use in analyzing the intermediate feedstock trade deal; and

(e) producing an output for indicating the compliance of the intermediate feedstock trade deal to the desired petroleum product specification, required volume and acquisition strategy.

23. A method of analyzing a composite of crude oils in real-time on a computer network to determine whether the composite of crude oils meets a predefined specification and yield, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to a client computer request, characteristics of the composite of crude oils on a host computer;

conditioning the received characteristics as inputs to a linear program, the linear program modeling blending of the composite of crude oils to determine whether the composite of crude oils meets a predefined specification and yield;

executing the linear program on the host computer using the conditioned characteristics as the inputs, including;

(a) executing the linear program such that the linear program is non-client computer resident;

(b) managing multiple execution instances of the non-client computer resident linear program using an active status signal;

(c) communicating, using standard network protocols, between the client computer and the host computer;

(d) downloading petroleum products pricing data from an online pricing information provider for use in determining whether the composite of crude oils meets a predefined specification and yield; and

(e) producing an output for indicating whether the composite of crude oils meets a predefined specification and yield.

27. A method of analyzing a composite of blendstocks in real-time on a computer network to determine whether the composite of blendstocks meets a predefined specification and yield for a variety of petroleum products, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to a client computer request, characteristics of the composite of blendstocks on a host computer;

conditioning the received characteristics as inputs to a linear program, the linear program modeling blending of the composite of blendstocks to determine whether the composite of blendstocks meets the predefined specification and yield for the variety of petroleum products;

executing the linear program on the host computer using the conditioned characteristics as the inputs, including;

(a) executing the linear program such that the linear program is non-client computer resident;

(b) managing multiple execution instances of the non-client computer resident linear program using an active status signal;

(c) communicating, using standard network protocols, between the client computer and the host computer;

(d) downloading petroleum products pricing data from an online pricing information provider for use in determining whether the composite of blendstocks meets the predefined specification and yield for the variety of petroleum products; and

(e) producing an output for indicating whether the composite of blendstocks meets the predefined specification and yield for the variety of petroleum products.

34. A method for analyzing crude oil, intermediate feedstock and petroleum product arbitrage relationships, comprising the steps of:

defining an arbitrage relationship between a plurality of crude oils, intermediate feedstocks and petroleum products;

gathering online information for the plurality of crude oils, intermediate feedstocks and petroleum products in the defined arbitrage relationship; and

generating an arbitrage spread value.

37. A method for providing a domain specific network search engine, comprising the steps of:

coupling the network search engine to a domain specific search-library knowledge base; and

executing the coupled network search engine to provide domain specific searching of network nodes.