Everyone is familiar with electronic trading platforms that feature goods from various sellers. However, a marketplace for gasoline, diesel, and other fuels is, without exaggeration, a new phenomenon in the traditional market. In August 2020, the company "ORG-Market" was founded, becoming a resident of the Skolkovo Technopark. In just six months of operation, over 40,000 tons of petroleum products were sold through its developed platform, org-market.com. We spoke with Sergey Tereshkin, the CEO of the Oil Resource Group, about how the platform was created and how it operates.

— What category of customers is your marketplace targeted at?

— Our clients are businesses that consume large volumes of fuel but cannot constantly go to gas stations for it. For them, delivery directly to the work site is preferable. For example, these include road construction companies, builders, agricultural enterprises, mines, coal quarries, boiler rooms, independent gas stations, oil fields, airports, and aeroclubs. Additionally, some customers require special fuels or other petroleum products that are not available at gas stations — only through oil traders. It’s necessary to call several such companies, compare prices, and try to negotiate a discount. Sometimes, a whole chain of intermediaries forms, each of whom takes their margin.

— Does your platform offer an alternative?

— Exactly. This is a classic marketplace. You log into the mobile app on your device or through the browser on your desktop computer and see a list of offers from the nearest oil refineries or large traders working directly with the manufacturer.

— What are the main advantages of this procurement system?

— The offer is maximally transparent: you see the price at the moment the fuel is shipped by the supplier, the fuel specifications, and the delivery or pickup conditions. We reduce the intermediary chain to a minimum, which, of course, is beneficial for our clients. Moreover, we ensure maximum trading transparency, reducing the impact of the human factor. Currently, when purchasing petroleum products, many companies announce tenders. The reason is distrust of their own staff: what if a manager buys fuel at an unfavorable price for the company, but beneficial for themselves? Our platform is, in fact, a tender that we conduct continuously. There is a list of current offers, a fair price with no markups or shady schemes, and automatic transaction processing, which takes not two or three days as usual, but just a few hours.

Application Interface "Fuel"
— Does the role of the human factor decrease?

— Of course. Our parent company "Oil Resource Group" is a classic oil trader, and we know from experience that servicing a deal requires seven specialists from different fields: sales manager, logistics, accountant, lawyer, etc. On the "ORG-Market" platform, most of these functions are "built into" the software through algorithms.

— What is the geographic coverage of the platform?

— Currently, it covers several regions of Central Russia. We are now negotiating with several vertically integrated oil companies to involve them in the platform’s work alongside independent companies. By reducing the number of intermediaries, these companies will be able to sell their products for a higher price, and buyers will pay less. Plus, they will have diversified customer flows, not just large traders. If negotiations are successful, our geographic coverage will significantly expand.

— Org-market.com launched in December 2020. What have been the results?

— If we talk about numbers, 41,000 tons of oil products have been sold, and revenue amounted to about 2 billion rubles. The project earns through licensing fees for the use of the platform and additional modules. For comparison: "Oil Resource Group" revenue in 2020 was 12.5 billion rubles. Currently, the platform features over 60 attractive offers from suppliers. We need partner banks with financial services, installment plans, and escrow accounts for further development.

Analysis by "Oil Resource Group"
— How did your business start?

— After moving to Moscow to study (I’m originally from Crimea), I opened a company selling lock hardware, then started selling doors. I was 19 years old, living in a dorm, and my business was already valued at over $1 million. Then came other projects, and I faced disappointments when I lost all my money due to dishonest partners. Later, I decided that in our resource-based country, the most promising area is working with raw materials. I joined a fuel company to get a better understanding of the industry and the market. In 2014, I left it and, together with my current business partner, founded "Oil Resource Group." We saw our task as introducing new business solutions to the traditional Russian market. The implementation of digital technologies has always been the driver of our growth, enabling a 100-200% increase per year. Automation allows us to sell oil products around the clock, seven days a week. A customer can place an order even if they’re on the other side of the world in a different time zone. We aim to operate in a way that a customer needing fuel on the evening of December 31st can still purchase it.

— How did the idea come about?

— The idea was born when I went to study at the Moscow School of Management "Skolkovo" for a practicum for directors. I later trained at Sberbank’s corporate university in an executive development program and, during those years, developed the "Fuel" mobile app. It allows you to buy gasoline, diesel, liquefied gas, etc., through your smartphone – as easily as ordering a taxi or food delivery. The "Fuel" app was integrated into the business processes of "Oil Resource Group." At the same time, I was developing the idea of a fuel marketplace. The idea received approval from top-level experts, and we began actively implementing it.

— Did your own specialists participate in the implementation?

— Yes, we have a technical department, where both IT specialists and market experts work. It’s important to understand that creating such software requires not only high-level programming skills but also a deep understanding of the functions that are transformed into algorithms.

— Is it possible to scale the model to other product categories?

— Yes, of course, because we are not only dealing with oil products. Last year, as part of business diversification, we created a company that trades in grain. We initially designed the platform so that we could add any product as an SKU (stock keeping unit). For example, grain, non-metallic materials, and more. And we can apply the same model to trade in all these goods.


Translated using ChatGPT