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Koch Minerals Receives Allegro Customer Innovation Award

Koch Minerals Receives Allegro Customer Innovation Award

November 6, 2014

Allegro Development Corporation, a leading provider of commodity risk management software, announced today that three global companies were recognized with the first annual 2014 Customer Innovation Awards.

Allegro’s Customer Innovation Awards were created to recognize customers with a commitment to excellence and innovation who have achieved quantifiable benefits through the use of industry best practices and using the Allegro 8 platform for commodity risk management. These customers were nominated by Allegro Services Directors, Deployment Managers and their peers in the Allegro user community. A leading third-party analyst, Commodity Technology Advisory (ComTech), was responsible for judging the nominations to select winners from each region where Allegro has a major presence including the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific.

From the nominations, ComTech selected three winners from eight finalists, a group representing a broad range of companies transacting in energy and commodity markets, including the power and utilities, oil and gas and agricultural sectors.

“The Innovation Awards were created to honor Allegro’s customers who have applied creativity, critical thinking and problem solving in their use of Allegro to successfully streamline and automate business processes,” said Melanie Ofenloch, Chief Marketing Officer of Allegro. “The three customers selected were chosen for their ability to innovate and produce greater returns in dynamic markets with increasing transaction volume, complex pricing, intricate deal types, and in some cases, sub-hourly trading intervals. These results are achievements worthy of recognition and reward.”

The Innovation Awards help Allegro recognize the leading firms in the industry who have applied creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and innovation to their use of the Allegro 8 Platform.

This list below contains each of the finalists and the achievements by which they were recognized:

  • BKW, one of Switzerland’s largest energy companies, was recognized for its use of Allegro to scale the asset based activities and quickly move across borders into neighboring power markets. In collaboration with Allegro, BKW is developing a complete power-portfolio solution that is currently implemented and tested by using a step by step approach and will be industry changing in European power markets.
  • Capital Power, a North American power producer headquartered in Alberta, was selected as a finalist for its ability to meet business needs using Allegro across a diverse portfolio of assets. The company streamlined operations and increased performance for business reporting using the Allegro 8 platform.
  • Kanawha River Terminals, a company that operates four coal transloading facilities in the US that service major coke producers and electric utilities, was selected for their streamlined reporting, improved data accuracy and reduced administrative headcount.
  • IWB, a Swiss utility, was recognized for its co-developed solutions for ESS-based communication with Power TSO’s.
  • Koch Minerals LLC, one of the world’s largest dry-bulk commodity handlers, was recognized for its utilization of Allegro’s automation to increase the accuracy and timeliness of key business information resulting in improved decision making and cost reductions.
  • MMGS, a company formed to market Mitsui’s massive production volume, was selected as a finalist for its ability to calculate historical VaR over a 12-month period, this was an industry first and marked the company’s status as a true innovator in the market.
  • Noble Americas Energy Solutions, one of the top retail energy marketers in the US and a long-time Allegro customer, was recognized for its use of Allegro to support its wholesale supply and retail customer base with trading and risk management, especially with the implementation of Allegro’s Renewables module.
  • Noble Group, an Asia-Pacific firm focused on marketing, financing and the transportation of raw materials and bulk commodities, was selected as a top innovator for leveraging the Allegro solution for gaining business intelligence for better decision making across the enterprise.

After a detailed evaluation, ComTech ultimately selected Koch Minerals, Noble Group and BKW for Allegro’s top three innovators of 2014. “We were impressed with how these three companies were able to show actual, quantifiable business results through their use of the Allegro solution,” said Patrick Reames, Managing Partner of ComTech. “Commodity markets are marked by complex business models and complex processes; those who can effectively utilize ETRM/CTRM technologies, such as Allegro, have the ability to improve their bottom-line performance by making smarter, faster business decisions. It’s good to see Allegro recognize and reward these users for their contributions to not only their company’s performance, but also their industry’s best practices.”

“At Koch, we focus on offering products and services that provide superior value for customers, and we seek out vendors like Allegro who share that same commitment,” said Brent Youngers, CIO of Koch Minerals and winner of the Americas award. “It’s an honor to be recognized as one of Allegro’s top three innovators and we congratulate the other two honorees who are receiving this award.”

Mark Smith, Global Head of Hards Technology for Noble Group commented, “We are delighted to be recognized in the technology industry for internal developments showing that we are able to build market leading solutions within Noble”.

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