By Yasmine EDDAM
17 April 2025
Inventory financing is a major issue for many companies, particularly those handling large volumes of raw materials such as petroleum products. Historically, the need to mobilise the value of these assets to obtain credit, without having to physically move them, led to the creation of appropriate legal mechanisms. The oil warrant was one of these tools. It was a form of pledge without dispossession, enabling companies holding stocks of crude oil or derivatives to pledge them as collateral for their loans, while keeping them in their own facilities. This system had the particularity of covering fungible, i.e. interchangeable, assets. Although this mechanism was repealed in 2021, an understanding of how it worked provides an interesting insight into the development of security interests in France. This parallel can also be drawn with the history and mechanisms of the warrant...
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