W Energy Software Transforms Phillips 66 Operations
Tank Storage Magazine recently published a featured article written by Michael Ferrante, W Energy Software’s VP of Transportation, for their November digital publication. Titled ‘W Energy Software Transforms Phillips 66 Operations’, Ferrante discusses the digital oilfield advancements in tank storage accounting and measurement. Read it now:
By Michael Ferrante, VP of Transportation, W Energy Software
Amidst the digital oilfield, paper tickets, paper invoices, even faxes continue to be part and parcel of many terminal operations. Digital systems tend to be built with older, legacy technology, create data silos, and are inflexible and difficult to use. The result is a mixed bag of commercial products, internally developed solutions, and disconnected workflows for invoicing, scheduling, inventory, balancing, and regulatory reporting. Manual processes and a fragmented information landscape persist at a time when terminal operators need a single view of complex supply chains and rapidly changing customer demand.
Terminals must efficiently track the movements of hydrocarbons between interconnects and across tank farms. Cloud and unified software systems are enabling service providers to accelerate the flow of information and automate the back office from accounts receivable and tank gauging to nominations and confirmations. With next-generation terminal management and measurement capabilities, service providers like Phillips 66 are navigating operational and market complexity, streamlining workflows, and reducing costs.
Managing Multifacated Terminal Accounting Complexity
Every component of a terminal operation introduces a different layer of accounting complexity. Nominations arrive from shippers in varying physical or digital formats; confirmations may be returned in similar fashion. Customer-specific rates for various throughput fees must be meticulously tracked and applied to large numbers of transactions. Preparing shipper invoices is all too often a time- and labor-intensive process. Maintaining up-to-date inventory across dozens of tanks is often impeded by manual processes and data delays. Operators must accurately measure and perform complex calculations to compare actual volumes to received volumes, a tough task, especially for facilities that store multiple grades of crude and many types of refined products.
Shipments are moving in complex new ways. Increasingly, terminals are managing intermodal tickets using a mix of transportation modes, including pipeline, truck, railcar, vessel, and barge.
And last but not the least, is regulatory accounting complexity that places a heavy burden on terminal operators to comply with ever evolving filing policies, such as the Excise Summary Terminal Activity Reporting System (ExSTARS).
The Information Landscape of a Tank Farm
For decades, terminal operators have taken two approaches to manage the accounting and information management complexities. First are ‘home-grown’ solutions, custom-developed terminal management software that meets their specific business needs. Such solutions trade heavy customization for the agility needed to adapt to evolving business needs. The cost can also be staggering, adding headcount for developers and support staff. There is also risk if the people who know the inner workings of a home-grown solution quit or retire.
To read more, click here to visit the featured article in the Tank Storage Magazine‘s November 2021 digital publication, or download the .pdf here.
Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, W Energy Software offers the oil & gas industry’s only unified ERP solution built for the cloud that is relied on by more than 130 upstream and midstream companies to accelerate business performance, improve operational efficiency, and drive costs down. W Energy Software combines precision-built software in one extendable cloud-based workspace with an intimate understanding of the oil & gas business to deliver solutions that offer flexibility, affordability, and continuous upgrades. Unlike other ERP software that loosely ties together a mix of legacy solutions and fragmented technologies, W Energy Software designed a unified upstream and midstream ERP platform to seamlessly track oil, gas, and NGL from the wellhead through transportation and marketing, eliminating data silos as well as the burden and costs of maintaining multiple systems. With W Energy Software, oil & gas companies stay lean and agile with the tools they need to adapt to market changes and meet evolving customer needs head-on, all while gaining the confidence that their business is running on the latest technology. For more information, please visit www.wenergysoftware.com.
![]() | Michael Ferrante, VP of Transportation Michael earned a B.S. in business administration from Oklahoma State University. Since joining our team, he has helped build various modules within our software, ranging from marketing to gas balancing to land administration. Michael has lead implementation projects in many business areas of the industry and is currently focused on expanding the Transportation practice area with new pipeline and terminal clients. |