A practical guide of bill of lading for Seafarers

If you ask me to name one document that is most important in shipping trade, I would name it as Bill of Lading. Banks do not issue funds, if the bill of lading is not clean.  Carrier do not release the cargo if they do not receive bill of lading. And carrier cannot escape from claim of liability for cargo damage against clean bill of lading. The commercial aspect of shipping trade revolves around bill of lading. It is thus important for Masters to be aware of all the situations they can be subjected to and how they should deal with such situations.

I am covering these in 3 sections

1. Issuing letter of authorisations to agents for signing bill of ladings
2. Master signing bill of ladings, And
3. Dealing with illegal requests

Lets dive in.

1. Issuing Letter of Authorisation to agents for signing bill of ladings

It is usual nowadays for the agents to sign bill of lading on Master’s behalf. There are few reasons why agent’s are asked to sign bill of ladings on master’s behalf. These can be

1) Bill of lading quantity not ready before vessel’s departure. This is particularly the case where EDP (Early departure procedure) is excercised. One such example is loading of crude oil in the port of Rastanura where EDP is common and vessel has to sail minutes after completion of cargo. This is also common where terminal takes more time for calculating shore figure loaded on board.

2) Terms and conditions for the bill of lading not yet finalised. This can happen if the format of the bill of lading is not yet agreed between the ship owners and the shipper (or shipper’s charterers). While they may still be communicating on the format of the bill of ladings, owners can instruct the agent to sign bill of lading on Master’s behalf.

3) The break-up of quantities not yet finalised. Sometimes the break up quantities for a commingled cargo is not finalised. In such case charterers may request owners to have the bill of ladings signed later by agent on behalf of master.