Crucially, in an instant (just a few minutes, it is said), confirmation from the bank triggers the refuelling process. Once the service is provided, the funds are transferred, the open application is closed, and a report is sent to the fuel supplier and to the aircraft.

The significance of GPNA’s technological leapfrog comes as the company celebrated its tenth anniversary last December.

So why is Gazpromneft-Aero eschewing its prior paper-based stratagem for this new technology now? Dmitry Makarov, head of methodology of commercial accounting, reveals that the idea of introducing a blockchain technology platform was born in November 2017.

Makarov reveals that the company has been experiencing some resistance internally to such a seminal change in future processes. “Yes, of course, there has been some opposition within the company because blockchain, as with every new technology, has enjoyed a lot of hyperbole over the last two or three years and has been a popular subject of discussion in the Russian media, for example.

“So, it is understandable that there was and is a lot of scepticism within the company because the new technology actually touches upon every area of the company’s affairs, including operational work and finance – basically everything,” he explains. “For people who are used to working with paper, it is complex for them to switch to something more modern. GPNA is introducing these innovations step by step,” Makarov notes.

Streamlining operations in any traditionally-run business predictably results in a reduced number of employees. Digitalisation increases this possibility. But Makarov disputes this will be the case at GPNA. “The system has not been applied to a large scale, where there would be massive job cuts,” he asserts.

“The company does not expect massive job cuts because the responsibilities of staff simply change, they do not cease to exist. Instead, they find new, more efficient ways, to apply their knowledge in different areas.”

Makarov is equally confident about any security risk posed by the company transitioning to using the cryptocurrency. “A lot of experts are unanimous the encryption that is used in blockchain is secure enough. In relation to hackers, it does not make economic sense, because even if someone hacks the system, the data is encrypted (in separate blocks) and it will take much more money to decrypt all the information than the value of the information itself,” he suggests.

However, research shows that human error when in-putting crucial information can undermine the blockchain process with wider consequences for other details stored on the database, for example.

International consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) observes that although the technology “brings transparency to transactions,” it also introduces risk and control challenges “that limit its enterprise potential”.

PwC also claims it has identified the three biggest risk issues for organisations and businesses making a foray into utilising DLT. “While the technology chains together all of the transactions in a network, blockchain lacks a way to directly view and analyse historical transactions,” says PwC.

“Secondly, because there are no technology standards – each enterprise environment is different – there’s [yet] no established risk and control framework.

World Cup fuels Gazpromneft-Aero’s broader ambitions

“Thirdly, few internal audit or risk teams have the skills needed to understand the design and control of blockchain business processes,” the firm concludes.

Nevertheless, GPNA clearly intends to forge ahead with DLT, which is only one of its lofty ambitions. The entity aspires to become one of the top-10 global refuelling companies by 2030. Reaching a five-fold increase in international sales volume, is also amongst its goals.

Maybe the company’s performance this year could be the tipping point in assisting its ascension in the refuelling industry’s rankings from being among the top 20 fuel operators. GPNA’s total volume of jet fuel sales in the first half of 2018 exceeded 1.7 million tonnes. To-date, the firm refuels one in four aircraft operating in Russia and services more than 80 international airlines, including Luxembourg all-cargo carrier Cargolux.

Gazpromneft-Aero also provided refuelling services to more than 13,000 aircraft carrying FIFA 2018 World Cup football fans and supplied a total volume of 140,000 tonnes of fuel for commercial, charter and special flights to and from the seven airports located in the host cities of Moscow (Sheremetyevo), St Petersburg (Pulkovo), Kaliningrad (Khrabrovo), Yekaterinburg (Koltsovo) and Saransk airports – a 15 per cent increase on average daily consumption, it says.