Grain Cargo Chartering: Vessel Selection and Port Restrictions

Grain is the most-fixed dry bulk cargo there is, which makes it look routine. It is not. Grain is the one cargo with its own international code governing how the ship must be loaded, the one where the stowage factor has to be calculated rather than looked up, and the one where a hold inspection at the loading port regularly sends a vessel back out to clean.

None of that is difficult. All of it is expensive when it is discovered at the berth.

The Grain Code and why the ship needs a document

Grain settles and shifts. As a vessel rolls, the surface of a bulk grain cargo moves and does not move back, and the resulting heeling moment reduces stability progressively rather than momentarily. The International Grain Code addresses this by setting out how a vessel must be loaded and what stability she must retain.

Commercially, this produces one requirement that is worth checking before anything else: the ship must hold a document of authorization for the carriage of grain, together with an approved grain loading booklet showing the permissible heeling moments for each filling condition. A vessel without it cannot load a bulk grain cargo, regardless of her size or her rate.

The booklet also governs how holds may be filled. Filled compartments, partly filled compartments and the arrangements required for each — trimming, or the securing of a slack surface — follow from it, and they affect how long loading takes and how much cargo actually goes on board.

Stowage factor comes from the test weight

Grain is not in the IMSBC Code. It is carried under the Grain Code, and its stowage factor is not read from a schedule but derived from the test weight of the specific parcel — the mass of one hectolitre, the figure that already appears on every grain contract.

Wheat at 78 kilogrammes per hectolitre corresponds to roughly 1.28 cubic metres per tonne before broken stowage; at 74 it is closer to 1.35. Barley is lighter again, commonly between 1.45 and 1.60, which is why barley parcels so often fill the holds while deadweight is still available.

The practical consequence is that two wheat cargoes of identical tonnage can need different ships. Stating the test weight in the enquiry lets the market screen tonnage immediately; omitting it produces offers that are later revised. Indicative figures for grain and the other cargoes we handle are collected in Stowage Factor and Cargo Reference.

Holds: the inspection everyone underestimates

Grain is loaded into holds that are grain clean — clean, dry, free of loose rust scale, free of residues of the previous cargo, free of odour and free of live infestation — and the standard is confirmed by an independent surveyor before loading starts.

A failure means the vessel leaves the berth or waits at it while the holds are recleaned, and the time is usually for the owner's account but the delay is everybody's problem. Two things prevent it:

• Know the previous cargoes. A ship coming off cement, coal, sulphur or fertilizer needs time and fresh water to reach grain clean. Coming off another grain cargo she may need very little. The last two or three cargoes are a reasonable question at the negotiation stage;
• Allow the time. Hold cleaning happens on the passage to the loading port, and a laycan that assumes a two-day ballast after a dirty cargo is a laycan that will be missed.

Infestation is a separate check. Where the receiving country requires it, holds are also inspected for insects, and residues in bilges, under hatch covers and behind frames are where inspections fail.

Fumigation in transit

Many grain cargoes are fumigated, and often in transit rather than before departure. This is a matter for the charter party rather than an operational afterthought: who appoints and pays the fumigator, what product is used, what the exposure period is, when holds may be ventilated afterwards, and what documentation the discharge port will require.

Where the discharging country requires a fumigation certificate showing a minimum exposure period, a short voyage can make in-transit fumigation impossible, and the alternative has to be arranged at the load port. That is a question to settle before fixing, not after sailing.

Ventilation and sweat

Grain is hygroscopic. Loaded warm and sailed into cold water, it releases moisture that condenses on the steel above and falls back onto the cargo, producing caking, mould and a discoloured top layer that will be argued about at outturn.

The working rule at sea is to ventilate when the dew point of the outside air is below the dew point of the air in the hold, and to keep hatches closed when it is not — with a proper ventilation log kept, because the log is the evidence if a claim follows. For a voyage from a warm loading area into a northern winter, the regime is worth agreeing at the fixture.

Quantity: draft surveys and what is disputed

Grain quantity is normally established by draft survey at both ends, and the two figures rarely match exactly. Differences arise from the survey conditions, from moisture loss on a long voyage, and from the accuracy of the readings.

Practical points that reduce argument: agree who appoints the surveyor and who bears the cost, agree a tolerance within which no claim arises, and make sure the statement of facts records the conditions under which each survey was taken. A quantity claim raised three weeks after discharge, against a survey nobody documented, is difficult to resolve on either side.

Ports and weather

Grain berths differ more than the cargo does. A silo berth with a spout loads at several thousand tonnes a day; a barge-to-ship operation at a river anchorage does not. Discharge into a suction unit is fast; discharge by grab into trucks is much slower and stops for rain.

Rain matters enough to be written into the charter party. Grain operations halt in rain, and whether that time counts as laytime depends on the clause — weather working days, and the treatment of rain that falls outside working hours, are worth reading rather than assuming.

Documents that set the dates

Grain moves under contracts with deadlines of their own: letter of credit expiry, phytosanitary and quality certificates issued at loading, certificates of origin, and often a shipment window written into the sale contract. These fix the laycan more firmly than the vessel's schedule does, and a delay of three days in loading can cost more through a lapsed letter of credit than through demurrage.

What a grain enquiry should contain

• the grain and its grade, with the test weight;
• quantity and tolerance, and in whose option;
• loading and discharging ports, with permissible draft and maximum length;
• laycan, and any deadline arising from the sale contract or letter of credit;
• loading and discharging rates and terms, with the treatment of rain;
• whether the ship's gear is required at either end;
• hold cleanliness standard and who appoints the surveyor;
• fumigation requirements, including whether it is to be in transit;
• any inspection or certification required by the receiving country.

Kiev Shipping Ltd charters wheat, corn, barley, soybeans, oilseed meals and other agricultural cargoes in parcels from roughly 3,000 to 50,000 tonnes, and has been fixing grain since 2000.

Service overview: Dry Bulk Cargo Chartering.

See also: Bulk Cargo Chartering: Vessel Sizes, Draft and Port Restrictions · Dry Bulk Cargo: Why Cargo Characteristics Matter · How to submit a chartering enquiry · more in Dry Bulk Cargo.