I was pleased to see the press release this week from Electronic Shipping Servives(ESS) advising that Preem have adopted Electronic B/Ls for their refineries in Sweden. See www.essdocs.com for further details.
For those of you who have missed this revolution or are sceptical after the many attempts in the business eb/ls are a reality and are here to stay and it’s great to see Preem giving it their vote of confidence with a five year deal. Preem join other companies working with ESS to slowly change this industry’s love of paperwork and transforming the way things are done.
There are many benefits to eb/ls but I am interested in the demurrage and ship operations where I see gains on both sides of the charter party.
Demurrage savings – no longer will vessels have to wait hours for cargo docs to be placed on board. Under most c/ps Owners have to suffer the first two or three hours delay waiting for documents after hoses have been disconnected. Charterers are then liable for the time after the grace period of 2 or 3 hours.
Look at the statistics on the ESS website –
8 minutes… Fastest time for terminal and master to review and sign draft eDoc
Think what that could do for your turnaround in port, and what about the hidden costs? Wait too long for your docs and then miss the tide. Waiting time after docs on board is for Owners account, but what about the cost for the terminal. An idle vessel on your berth is tying up time you could have used loading or discharging another vessel.
No more letters of indemnity. With e/bls the original b/l will be presented to the master electronically to discharge the cargo. Owners will no longer need an LOI, no more arguing over the wording, no more asking for a bank guarantee. The major Pandi clubs have also given their blessing to this system
There are also many advantages to trading oil with the speed of documents running through the banking system. You can do everything in electronic form what you currently do in paper form including recutting of the b/l, only faster –
3 hours… Fastest time to recut an electronic bill of lading post issuance
Are you using e/bls already? What do you think? Tell us what you like and what you dislike here.
Are you still a sceptic? Tell us here why you think it won’t catch on.
2 thoughts on “Electronic Bills of Lading are here to stay!”
Great update Phil. In this day and age when no one writes and post a letter they sent a text or email this really is a no brainer.
Thanks for your comment Bryan, you are right. In a few years time we will be saying "do you remember when we had paper bills of lading?"