National Oil Companies

Lifting programs, planned months out

A lifting program allocates cargoes to term buyers by month or quarter. Each lifting carries a laycan, the laydays and canceling window in which the buyer's vessel must arrive, and the window narrows as the date approaches. The program only works if tankage and berths are ready when each window opens.

We plan tank space against the published program, not against the month's receipts alone. When a buyer substitutes a vessel or a window moves, we re-run berth and tank availability the same day and confirm in writing what is possible.

Export logistics

Building an export cargo is an aggregation problem. Crude or product arrives by pipeline, barge or rail in parcels far smaller than the ship, and must be held, sampled and measured until a full cargo is ready. Draft is the next constraint. Most US Gulf Coast ports cannot load a fully laden VLCC alongside, so full cargoes are often completed by reverse lightering, with smaller vessels shuttling crude out to the larger ship offshore.

• Aggregation of inbound parcels into a cargo-sized stock
• Mixing to a homogeneous quality before the shore sample is drawn
• Loading to the nominated vessel and berth sequence
• Lightering coordination where berth draft limits the load
• Ullage reports, B/L figures and inspector certificates issued on completion

Import logistics for home markets

An NOC that imports fuel needs product that meets its national specification on arrival, in parcels sized for its own discharge ports. We receive larger cargoes, test them, blend or additize where the specification calls for it, and reload into smaller vessels or barges. Each outbound parcel is documented back to its source cargo, so a quality claim at destination can be traced to its origin.

The documents behind every cargo

Term contracts and letters of credit turn on documents. A cargo that is physically perfect can still go unpaid if the documents do not match the credit. We prepare and check the terminal-side documents against the contract and the credit terms before the vessel sails, not after the bank raises a discrepancy.

Sanctions and sovereign scrutiny

State-owned sellers and buyers deal with sanctions regimes, export controls and political attention that most private traders never see. We screen every counterparty, vessel and port call against applicable sanctions lists, including those published by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), before a nomination is accepted, and we keep that record with the cargo file.