China boasts a prosperous Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market. In 2018 alone, 280 billion cubic meters of natural gas has been consumed. With China’s coal-to-gas conversion policy and a fast-growing economy, we can expect an increasing demand for LNG in the years ahead. To better serve the enormous Chinese market, ENN Energy Holdings Limited, one of the largest energy service providers in China, has turned to VeChainThor Blockchain for optimal quality control and supply-chain management. Nationwide, ENN is operating 187 project cities that cover a connectable urban population of 94.57 million in China.

In August 2018, at the China International Gas & Heating Technology and Equipment Exhibition 2018, ENN, VeChain, a leading enterprise-level public blockchain platform, and Shanghai Gas, a state-owned company that accounts for more than 90% of Shanghai’s total gas market, signed a strategic cooperation agreement to develop a VeChainThor Blockchain-based LNG solution.

This Solution was first adopted by Zhoushan LNG Storage and Distribution Centre. In this application, VeChainThor Blockchain is applied in combination with IoT devices to facilitate supply-chain management. Upon arrival, the gas will be injected into different tanks, from there each tank of gas is assigned a tank number, associating with the relevant data stored on the blockchain, such as clarification value, sources, and the like. When trucked out to retailers, logistics information and the LNG quality reports will be uploaded to the blockchain as well. Through this process, the data of LNG from carrier to local distributors can be cross-validated and verified on blockchain fulfilling government mandates.

ENN Zhoushan LNG station

In this episode of our “Partner Update and Spotlight Series”, Tao Zhou, Deputy General Manager of Domestic Trade Group, ENN Energy Trading Group was invited to speak about how the VeChainThor Blockchain has brought real value to their business.

Being a brand new technology, it’s natural for blockchain to be doubted or even criticized, but instead of evading the critics, we should rise up to the questions and develop solid solutions and explore new application scenarios to integrate it with the real economy. We’re glad to have this opportunity to cooperate with innovative technology companies like VeChain to create new ways of trading and information processing for the energy industry. From our experience in the past year, the integration of blockchain into the energy industry is possible. I believe that in addition to the LNG business, the cooperation will also contribute to other businesses and products of ENN. We also hope that the community members would join us in promoting the business and further its presence on the market. — — Tao Zhou, Deputy General Manager of Domestic Trade Group, ENN Energy Trading Group

Read the excerpt of the full video interview below:

Q: On the first anniversary of the launching of the VeChainThor Blockchain mainnet, do you have anything to say to VeChain?

First of all, I would like to congratulate VeChain for the first anniversary of VeChainThor mainnet. On behalf of ENN, I would like to extend my best wishes to VeChain, and hope that the business of VeChain would flourish, and onboard even more partners going forward, I also hope that ENN can create even higher value upon VeChainThor Blockchain.

Q: In which use case did ENN implement VeChainThor’s blockchain technology?

The cooperation of ENN and VeChain started in August 2018, when ENN, VeChain and Shanghai Gas signed a strategic cooperation agreement. It was in September 2018 when VeChainThor Blockchain technology first used in the pilot phase of the ENN Zhoushan Terminal, which is the first large private-owned LNG Terminal in China. In the application, VeChainThor Blockchain technology is integrated into our existing system to keep track of the transportation, sales, usage of LNG and the settlements.

Q: What positive changes have VeChainThor Blockchain technology brought to ENN?

The natural gas imported by ENN is from all over the world, so the composition, quality, calorific value, and gasification rate varies from batch to batch. Local distributors are also paying great attention to the pressure changes of the gas during transportation, the time of arrival, and price changes.

With VeChainThor Blockchain technology, the above-mentioned information can be verified and stored on the blockchain, thus users can grasp the information by scanning QR codes. In this way, we can ensure information authenticity and transparency, while further enhancing safety.

The solution has not only been well-received by our customers, but also drummed up interest among a number of financial institutions. With the authentic and encrypted data available for checking, they are now provided with a tool for information query and verification, which is making it possible for them to provide various supply-chain financial services. It’s part of our future plan to help materialize that idea.

Q: Why did you choose VeChain?

First, ENN and VeChain’s cooperation is the result of the recommendation from Mr. Zhehong Wang, the Chairman of Shanghai Gas.

Secondly, this choice is a no-brainer for ENN as we’re undergoing digital transformation.

Thirdly, we thought it would be great to cooperate with a company that is strongly supported by DNV GL and PwC. Most importantly, we were very impressed by VeChain’s professionalism, openness, inclusiveness, as well as their solid technical background.

Q：How does ENN empower its clients through the VeChainThor Blockchain?

Without blockchain, we would have to invest lots of time and human resources to have the information transferred from one person to another through phone calls, emails, QQ, and WeChat. This is not only a waste of time and resources, but also leaves our system vulnerable to human intervention and errors.

Now, with the VeChainThor Blockchain, relevant data can be uploaded to the blockchain in real-time, making it possible for our clients to check and backtrack all the changes at their discretion, without being troubled by the time and resources needed for communication or human errors.

In addition to that, since all the data stored on the blockchain are authentic, encrypted and available for checking, supply chain financial service providers are now provided with a tool for information query and verification. So that moving forward, empowered by VeChainThor Blockchain, supply chain financial services, including warehouse receipt pledge, quality traceability and safety assurance, can be provided for our clients.

Q: In the next stage, what is ENN’s plan for VTHO consumption on VeChainThor Blockchain?

Firstly, as the Solution has become increasingly popular among our clients, we are gaining even more confidence in VeChainThor Blockchain technology, thus we will persistently push ahead this new business.

Secondly, with the development of Zhoushan LNG Terminal, we can expect sustainable growth in shipments. The total daily delivery is about 60 truckloads right now, we are increasing the number to over 200. In the future, we plan to further increase the number to 400, as a result of the expansion of the Zhoushan pilot program’s scale and delivery capacity.

Thirdly, we will promote the Zhoushan Model to 20 other terminals that have business with us in China, starting from the leading enterprises like Shanghai Gas, Guanghui Energy, Guangdong Jiufeng.

Fourthly, we are considering to introduce the model to other related fields. For one, as I mentioned, we will work with common clearinghouses, banks, insurance and mortgage companies to provide more value-added services to our users.

As ENN is trying to shape up diversity in its business, we hope that our cooperation with VeChain can be extended to fields other than LNG, such as electricity, renewable energy, thermal energy, oil and gas, coal and more. With the expansion of trading volume, the consumption of VTHO would increase as well.

Empowered by the VeChainThor Blockchain, ENN has successfully lifted their supply-chain management to a higher level and streamlined the once complicated and complex internal practices and procedures.

Moving forward, VeChain will work even more closely with ENN to promote the model to other LNG projects and explore new business scenarios, generating value for both the real economy and the end consumers.

*This is the fifth installment of the Partner Update and Spotlight Series. We hope to offer a unique look at some of the implemented solutions using the VeChainThor Blockchain. The range of use cases that these partners are implementing on the VeChainThor main net includes energy, supply chain management, retail, digital certificates, food, and beverages. As more and more of our partners and enterprise organizations are ready to announce and talk about their successful use cases of the VeChainThor blockchain, we will continue to expand this series.

Read and watch the other installments through the links below:

Partner Update and Spotlight Series: iTaotaoke

https://medium.com/vechain-foundation/partner-update-and-spotlight-series-itaotaoke-74c00f27b4d0

Partner Update and Spotlight Series: MadeforGoods

https://medium.com/vechain-foundation/partner-update-and-spotlight-series-madeforgoods-22645693a65a

Partner Update and Spotlight Series: DNV GL

https://medium.com/@vechainofficial/partner-update-and-spotlight-series-dnv-gl-da57bb66a0eb

Partner Update and Spotlight Series: BrightCode

https://medium.com/@vechainofficial/partner-update-and-spotlight-series-brightcode-61794db9941b