Baltic Kontor carries out bunker surveys in Latvia to establish the quantity of fuel on board, document bunker delivery or redelivery and take samples where fuel quality is in question. The survey record provides measurements and evidence for quantity, quality and off-specification disputes.
Quantity
- Quantity on board before and after delivery, from soundings or ullages of every bunker tank
- Temperature and density readings, with volume corrected to standard temperature
- Figures worked against the vessel’s own tank calibration tables
- Comparison of the quantity found on board with the bunker delivery note, and the difference investigated
- Attendance at the barge or the shore installation where the instruction covers it
- Short delivery, air entrained in the fuel during transfer, and unaccounted quantity at redelivery
Quality
- Sampling through the transfer, and sealing of the samples in the presence of both parties
- Samples dispatched to an independent laboratory for analysis against ISO 8217 and the terms of the supply contract
- Off-specification fuel — viscosity, density, flash point, water, sediment, catalyst fines
- Sulphur content against the limits of MARPOL Annex VI
- Incompatibility and sludge where a new delivery is commingled with fuel already in the tanks
- Attendance where machinery damage is put down to the fuel, together with a damage survey
Bunker quantity and quality disputes
Under Regulation 18 of MARPOL Annex VI the bunker delivery note stays on board for three years, and the sealed representative sample is kept until the fuel is substantially consumed and in any case for not less than twelve months from delivery; that sample is released only to port state or flag state authorities. The IMO sampling guidelines (resolution MEPC.182(59)) and ISO 13739 put the sampling point at the receiving ship’s inlet bunker manifold and the method as a continuous drip taken through the whole of the delivery.
In practice a case stands or falls on five things: the bunker delivery note, the sealed samples with seal numbers recorded and unbroken, the survey report with the measurements taken before and after, the entries in the deck and engine log books and the Oil Record Book, and the letter of protest handed to the supplier before the vessel sails. A spot sample drawn at the end of the operation, or a protest raised a week later, carries far less weight.
On/off-hire bunker surveys
Fuel remaining on board is established on delivery and again on redelivery under a time charter, at the same attendance as the on-hire or off-hire condition survey where one is instructed. Where the quantity in question is cargo rather than fuel, the work is a draft survey.
Who instructs
Owners and managers, charterers, P&I clubs and their correspondents, hull and machinery underwriters, and the lawyers acting for them. Where a dispute runs past survey attendance into recovery or security, it continues with our maritime lawyers.
