Brazilian miner and iron ore producer Vale has announced that it completed its first sale of iron ore using blockchain technology with Nanjing Iron & Steel Group International Trade Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China-based Nanjing Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. Accordingly, a cargo of 176,000 mt of Brazilian blend fines was sold from Teluk Rubiah Maritime Terminal, in Malaysia, to China.
According to Vale, it is an important milestone towards digitalization of sales and the trade process, bringing innovation to the traditional paper-intensive trade transactions and offering a better service to clients as well as predictability in the steel value chain.
The letter of credit (LC) was issued through the Contour blockchain platform, while the shipping documents and the electronic bill of lading were handled via essDOCS’ CargoDocs solution. The transaction also had support from DBS Bank Ltd and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad.
The integrated transaction enabled end-to-end security and transparency with real time visibility of the documentation to all stakeholders, reducing the amount of emails and paperwork exchanged among the parties.