GCC Liquefied Natural Gas sector meets Blockchain

With the current energy slump worldwide, the GCC region a hub for both oil and gas energy production is going through a transformation to not only digitize their operations but also incorporate technologies such as Blockchain to streamline supplychain.

UNLOCK recently interviewed Jean Christophe Finidori, the Founder and General Manager of HODLNG HODLNG incorporated in Estonia is a blockchain company that seeks to provide solutions for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector. According to Finidori, “Our main goal is to help energy stakeholders, and our solution addresses contracting issues creating a fair innovative profit sharing mechanism, benefiting both exporters and importers. We are tracking additional revenues that go through the system to go to those who most need it.”

HODLNG is designed using a full stack of existing blockchain based open source technologies that provide response to more diversified pricing formulas and contracts in the LNG Market. Finidori explains, “We use smart contracts approach to facilitate litigation with change of destination and we trace additional revenues through tokenization as we want to make sure these additional revenues go to marginalized communities making a positive social impact.”

Finidori who has a background in both IT and  work with the United Nations , believes that utilizing technology such as Blockchain in LNG market can also have a positive social impact and redistribute revenues fairly. He adds, “We envisage HODLNG has a comprehensive and global Blockchain-based solution to design an innovative smart contracting regime and to create a fair profit-sharing mechanism. We offer a 3-layer architecture: Layer 1 - Blockchain (consensus). Layer 2 - Smart contract: a scalable and private off-chain smart contracting process. Layer 3 – Digital assets to incentive the contractors; managing profit-sharing agreements.”

HODLNG has received a five figure initial funding for its project from the European Commission through BlockIS. Finidori explains, “We are currently looking at a next step to raise 6 figures in funding and are looking into various solutions for that such as participating in Qatar Qubic incubator. This funding round will be used for sales and marketing since we are targeting 19 LNG exporting countries including countries in Asia-Pacific.”

The platform is developed on Ethereum Blockchain. According to Finidori, “The European Commission asked us to develop on Ethereum as it is a public blockchain, open platform where sensitive information is off chain, and includes smart contracts. We are currently also exploring using Hashgraph, Blockstack, Cardano as mainnets.”

HODLNG has already participated in the 16^th Annual Gas Union Research Conference in Oman, and plans to carry out a bigger event in Oman in upcoming months. He states, “We have seen interest not only from Oman but as well from Qatar which is a leading exporter, and UAE. Both countries I have noticed are very keen on providing their youth with latest technology and innovations while utilizing their natural resources effectively.”

HDLNG is interested in setting up an office in the region, such as Bahrain or Doha. Finidori explains, “We feel it is imperative that we have a foothold in the region which has one of the biggest natural gas and energy industries.”