Tallying Steel cargoes in St. Petersburg, Russia
It appears that an effective step to avoid the shortage claim is to arrange ship's tallymen in Russian ports, which is preferable especially for the steel cargo. Although it would be possible for you to arrange the ship's tallymen through the vessel's local agent, please feel free to contact our claims department in case you would like to ask our correspondents' assistance. However, please note that fees for ship's tallymen or pre-loading survey are not fallen into our coverage.
In case of emergency our correspondent in St. Petersburg is accessible as follow;
Pandi Services East
Ul.Kronshtadtskaya 15-Office 308
198096 St. Petersburg,
RUSSIA
Tel:+7 812 320 98 46
Fax:+7 812 320 83 10
e-mail:pandi@comset.net
According to the port regulations, cargoes are to be tallied by the port tallymen and by the tallymen working on behalf of the vessel i.e. the ships crew or independent tallymen appointed by the Owners or the Charterers of the vessel. Shippers, as a rule, do not appoint an independent tally and accept the tally carried out by the port tallymen.
The port's and the ship's tallymen must verify their counts at the end of every working shift and sign each other's tally sheets. If any discrepancy is found they should re- check the quantity of cargo loaded and rectify the discrepancy to mutual satisfaction. Cargo operations can be suspended when necessary.
If the Owners or the Charterers do not appoint any independent tallymen and the ship does not arrange for a tally to be carried out by the crew the Master is to accept a tally count of the port tallymen and to sign the relevant tally sheets. If such is the case the Shippers will never accept any remarks in the Mate's Receipts and Bills of Lading concerning cargo quantity such as "Quantity unknown","Quantity as per Shipper's declaration",etc. The Shipper will refer to Article 145 Cl. 1 of the Merchant Shipping Code of the Russian Federation which reads:"Where the Bill of Lading contains information concerning the names of cargo, its principal markings, number of packages or items, mass or quantity of goods, in respect of which the Carrier or other person issuing the Bill of Lading on his behalf know or have sufficient reason to believe that such information does not correspond to the cargo actually received or loaded at the moment of issue of the Shipped Bill of Lading, or if the Carrier or such other person did not have reasonable opportunity to check the information supplied, the Carrier or such other person is to enter into the Bill of Lading a clause exactly specifying the discrepancies, grounds for supposition or the lack of a reasonable opportunity to check the said information."
If no tally is carried out on behalf of the vessel and a dispute regarding the quantity of cargo loaded arises the Shippers will refuse to accept any remarks concerning the cargo quantity claiming that the Master has no sufficient reason to believe that the port tally is inaccurate and that he has had an opportunity to check it by arranging a tally to be carried out by the crew or by the independent tallymen on ship's behalf.
Prior to loading operations the Master will be required to sign Statement of Tally Control in which he should enter the name of a company tallying on the ship's behalf or names of crew members appointed as tallymen.This Statement also informs the Master that in case the vessel does not place any tallymen of its own the tally count of the port's tallymen must be accepted. We attach hereto a copy of this Statement's pro-forma.
In view of the above we recommend the Shipowners to appoint an independent surveyor through the local P&I Correspondents to tally the cargo. In case a dispute regarding the quantity of the cargo loaded arises the surveyor's tally report is a sufficient ground for clausing Mate's Receipts and Bills of Lading. Of course the Master may disagree with the surveyor's findings but then he should have some other reasons in order to insist on clausing Mate's Receipts and Bills of Lading otherwise there may be a prolonged dispute with the Shippers and unnecessary delay of the vessel.