Altra Energy Technologies has teamed up with Epicentric Inc., aprovider of e-commerce portals, to form a new subsidiary that willsupply an “end-to-end e-business solution” that enables energycompanies to create their own privately branded portals. Thejointly owned Altra E-Business Solutions’ first offering will be awholesale energy trading portal, which integrates every tradingelement into a single personalized browser.

Using Epicentric’s portal integration technology and the energytrading and transaction management technology of Altra, thesubsidiary will market the portal, which includes a full range ofinternal applications, third party applications and mid and backoffice functionality. The venture will be headed up by Ahmad Atwan,Altra’s vice president of e-business solutions.

“By leveraging Epicentric’s industry-leading portal integrationframework, we can provide energy companies with a fast track fordeploying energy-centric e-business strategies that significantlycut costs and improve efficiency,” said Altra CEO Paul Bourke. “Thecreation of the Altra E-Business Solutions subsidiary marks amilestone in the evolution of Web-based solutions for energycompanies.”

The new company’s Altra Wholesale Energy Portal will allowenergy companies to put out their own “privately branded e-businesssolution” that integrates pre-transaction decision support tools,Altra’s energy trading platform and post-transaction applicationsand resources. It will feature real-time streaming prices, charts,news, analysis and energy-focused weather reports.

Traders will be able to leverage these resources to makeinformed transactions with direct access to the Altrade energyexchange. Traders will then be able to access mid and back officetasks such as deal capture, risk management, scheduling, delivery,invoicing and payment via a flexible portal framework that iscustomized to fit each individual company’s needs.

Altra E-Business Solutions said its Altra Wholesale EnergyPortal is already available for purchase, with other energy-focusedportal solutions to follow beginning later this year.

Alex Steis

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