Assessing the readiness to use blockchain technology in the National Iranian Gas Company

The oil and gas industry has an annual investment of 700 billion dollars in the world, and the issue of cost savings to stabilize competitiveness is at least 140 billion dollars per year. Previously, in the oil and gas industry, the use of blockchain technology was considered cautiously, but now large companies are seriously looking for ways to implement such technology in their companies. The oil and gas industry presents a unique and compelling opportunity to exploit blockchain technologies due to high transaction value (and thus risk) and economic pressures to reduce costs. a security system that reduces risk, increases transparency, provides an audit trail, and significantly reduces transaction costs may be attractive to oil and gas companies. Oil and gas, contrary to the size and scale of transactions between banks, are sold in large volumes and thus require significant value. the frequency of transactions is also high. oil companies must also be aware of where the crude resource will ultimately babsorbed. Blockchain can provide a fully transparent and secure record of the entire supply chain. Using a distributed ledger, digital tokens can be used to represent an asset being traded. This paper aims to evaluate the readiness to use blockchain in the
National Iranian Gas Company.

Design/methodology/approach:

 The approach of this study is survey-based. In terms of its purpose, it is applied research and in terms of its nature and method, it is descriptive-survey research. In this study, two library and field methods have been used to collect data. The library method has been used to write the theoretical foundations, the background of the research, and to find the desired components and metrics, and the questionnaire of pairwise comparisons with a spectrum of nine has been used for field research and collecting the required data.

By examining the existing models and using the opinions of blockchain experts, the effective factors in the evaluation of this technology in National Iranian Gas Company were identified and to examine the factors identified in the company and to rank, score and prioritize the factors, the fuzzy hierarchy method has been used. Factors have been weighted by Chang's development analysis method and the weight of all components was determined. Also, by forming matrices of importance and status using experts' opinions and using fuzzy screening, the maturity level of factors in the National Iranian Gas Company was identified. After identifying and confirming the effective factors, the questionnaire of paired comparisons was designed and submitted to nine experts and by collecting the questionnaires and using the fuzzy hierarchy method and data analysis, the weighting of all the criteria and sub-criteria was carried out, with the organizational factor having the highest weight and the environmental factor having the lowest weight. Th support of the senior manager has had the highest weight and the size of the organization has had the lowest weight under the criteria. Also, ranking, prioritizing, and measuring the maturity of the finalized criteria were done using the fuzzy screening method, and the criteria of organizational readiness, technology readiness, environmental readiness, and human readiness were placed in first to fourth places, respectively.

Research limitations/implications: 

It is suggested that the National Iranian Gas Company and the country's oil and gas industries, in general, seek to provide the necessary infrastructure for the implementation of such technology to use and benefit from it and formulate a suitable road map by forming specialized units. The lack of familiarity of human resources of organizations with blockchain technology and the financial and human cost of changes in each organization are among the main limitations of using blockchain in the oil and gas industry.

Practical implications: 

Blockchain technology can be used to reduce costs, improve processes, track and secure product and customer data, increase product safety, and reduce counterfeiting and fraud.

Social implications:

 The impact of oil and gas on human life is clear and cannot be ignored. it is enough to look around and see the countless uses of such products. Therefore, the optimal use of oil and gas seems significant. Blockchain technology, by influencing the supply chain, increasing the security of exchanges, optimal marketing, etc. can be the basis for increasing productivity and, as a result, the possibility of using such strategic products as much as possible for human society.

Originality/value: 

The value of using new technologies to increase productivity in organizations is not hidden from anyone. However, the question is whether the conditions for using this technology are available in organizations. This is particularly important when the technology is used incorrectly and leads to negative results. For the first time, this paper sought to investigate the possibility of using blockchain technology in the National Iranian Gas Company.