Mobil Oil Takes Next Workstations Plus Phibro's MC2 And Others

Mobil Oil Corp.'s Supply and Trading Division, based in Fairfax, Va., has signed a letter of intent to install some 400 NeXT Computer Inc. workstations by mid-1994. The NeXT hardware will find Mobil homes on energy and treasury trading desks, as well as in support of operations and back-office functions.

The firm also plans to add a second treasury trading desk at its London office, which will work in coordination with the existing treasury trading group in Fairfax. Mobil does business in 125 countries worldwide. It maintains energy trading rooms at six sites in addition to Fairfax and London.

While a solid rollout schedule hasn't yet been set for the energy trading operation's planned technology upgrade, sources say that a general project completion date of mid-1994 is in place. Meanwhile, the new treasury system is expected to be up and running by the first quarter of next year.

The NeXT-based systems will replace an amalgam of stand-alone and PC-based market data services on both desks. Among these are a data distribution system from V-Band Corp.'s MultiView, which supports the Fairfax energy traders, as well as a PC-based system, which supports the Fairfax treasury desk.

The energy trading group's NeXTstations will run mc2, the set of applications being marketed by Salomon Inc.'s Phibro Energy Inc. unit. The sale of the system to Mobil is the first for Phibro. Phibro implemented the system on its own behalf last year, and is still developing some of its components (TST, Sept. 23, 1991). Energy traders in Fairfax currently number more than 40.

The mc2 system includes a variety of applications designed to support trading in physical crude oil and derivative products, as well as supply operations, including managing and ordering the physical transfer of commodities.

According to a source at mc2, the initial implementation of the system at Mobil will not include all the functionality that's available. It will include deal capture and analytical applications, but not Phibro's decision-support tools for bullion and financial instruments traders.

Mobil sources say the oil company hasn't yet hammered out all the specifics of its planned configuration of mc2 -- though they indicate that Mobil will likely follow more or less in Phibro's footsteps. Mobil will also likely develop proprietary applications to run on the system.

Phibro's version of the mc2 system makes use of NeXT workstations, as well Sun Microsystems Inc. SPARCstation servers, Knight-Ridder Inc. data, and Kapiti PLC's FIST local data distribution system. Sources say Mobil is in negotiations with all these vendors, but hasn't signed any contracts yet -- beyond a letter of intent to NeXT.

Meanwhile, the new treasury system will enable Mobil's corporate entities worldwide to centrally manage foreign exchange trading for the first time. The new foreign exchange trading group in London will be linked to Fairfax via Mobil's wide area network.

To distribute real-time market data to the NeXTs used by treasury traders in Fairfax and London, Mobil has settled on FD Consulting Inc.'s MIPS local data distribution system running on Sun Microsystems Inc. SPARCstation servers.

Treasury traders at both sites will be supported by Digital Equipment Corp. VAX-based deal-capture and back-office processing systems from New York-based Wall Street Systems Inc. The back- office processors will be based in Fairfax, with linkage to London via the wide area network. The treasury group's risk management systems, including options pricing models and optimal hedging tools, are being developed in-house.

Once the new system goes live, the Fairfax desk will comprise Mobil's forex manager Joanne Hogan, three traders, one risk management analyst, as well as back-office staff. Meanwhile, the London desk will comprise three traders, in addition to back- office personnel.

According to Hogan, the advantages to setting up the desk in London, include not having to maintain round-the-clock trading hours in Fairfax and being able "to take advantage of natural offset in across-border affiliates."