Earlier this year there appeared in “Lloyd’s List Supplement” a series of questions and answers from an Intertanko source with the rather extravagant title of “The tanker bill of lading must behave or go!”.

To the charterer this seemed to overlook one important point, namely that if owners cannot do without charterers, the latter in many cases can, by purchasing their own vessels. Admittedly it would be more expensive in today’s conditions (at least those at the moment of writing) but the more the cost of crude oil increases the smaller becomes the element of cost of transport in the total cost. (At the moment of writing crude costs some 20 times what it did 12 years ago.) Further, the majority of the purchasers of crude oil have no choice but to accept “contrats d’adhésion” as presented by their suppliers, but that does not mean that they will be prepared to accept similar contracts for chartering from Intertanko members, and may well be prepared to accept the extra cost of their own vessels as a small price to pay for the independence.

The latest crisis concerns the delivery of the cargo without the surrender of an original of the bill of lading. The writer became brusquely aware of it one Saturday morning when a tanker, after mooring, announced that the cargo would not be discharged without either an original of the bill of lading or a letter of indemnity countersigned by a bank. It so happened that the following Monday was a public holiday, so that with the best will in the world nothing could be done with a bank before the following Tuesday. After lengthy telephone conversations with the owners the latter advised their master to discharge against charterers’ own letter without counter-signature of a bank. After that, the question was always discussed during the chartering negotiations, and if owners insisted on a guarantee from a bank, the charter was not concluded.

However, this precaution later proved to be insufficient. A vessel was voyage-chartered from a disponent owner who was eventually revealed as a time-charterer from another disponent owner. At first, the disponent owner insisted on a letter signed by a bank but when he realised that the charter would not be made on such terms, he accepted that delivery would be made against charterers’ own letter of indemnity. When the vessel arrived the head owner instructed the master not to deliver without presentation either of an original of the bill of lading or a letter of indemnity signed by a bank. In view of the terms of the charter-party the charterers refused and the vessel waited for the bills of lading to arrive.