Who bears which cost, and where risk passes.

Under CFR the seller contracts for carriage and pays the freight required to bring the cargo to the named port of destination. The buyer receives a delivered price with no freight to arrange.

The point that catches buyers out is that CFR splits cost and risk. The seller pays carriage all the way to the discharge port, but risk of loss or damage transfers when the cargo is on board at the load port — exactly where it transfers under FOB. If the cargo is lost mid-voyage, the buyer still owes the price.

That is not a trap; it is how the rule is designed. It simply means a CFR buyer should insure the cargo themselves, because the seller is under no obligation to do so. A buyer who wants the seller to carry insurance should be trading on CIF, not CFR.

CFR is useful where you want the simplicity of a delivered price and already have an open marine cargo policy that covers the voyage.

Under a tank take over the seller sells the product together with the storage holding it. The product is already in the seller's tank at an independent terminal; on full payment the lease of that tank is assigned to the buyer, and the terminal records the change of holder.

The distinguishing feature is that nothing moves. There is no pumping, no line displacement and no transfer loss, because the cargo stays exactly where it is and only the name against the tank changes. That is why a take over can complete inside a single working day where an in-terminal transfer might take several.

Quantity is the gauged tank content at the moment of takeover, and quality is established from samples drawn immediately before it. Both are determined by an independent inspector, and the terminal's title transfer document is what evidences the change of ownership.

What it requires from a buyer is a relationship with the terminal: they must accept you as an incoming holder and you must satisfy their own compliance requirements before the assignment can be recorded. That is worth starting early, because it is the step most likely to hold a takeover up.

Vessel to tank is the structure our EN 590 10ppm business at Jurong runs on. The cargo arrives by sea, the vessel berths, and the product is injected from the vessel into the tank the buyer has nominated at the terminal.

Its advantage over loading straight into a buyer's vessel is that the cargo comes to rest somewhere the buyer controls and can inspect properly. Once injection is complete the buyer is given tank access, and an independent inspector carries out quantity and quality determination and the dip test on product that is sitting still in a gauged tank rather than moving through a manifold.

That is why the payment step sits after inspection rather than before it. The buyer sees the verified figures for the parcel in their own tank, and only then does settlement complete.

It requires the buyer to have a tank storage agreement in place and to provide the terminal authorisations — the authorisation to verify and the authorisation to inject — before the vessel arrives.

Dip and pay is a payment mechanism rather than a delivery term, and it is the one most often asked for by buyers who have been burned before. The buyer appoints an independent inspector who dips the nominated tank to establish quantity and draws samples to establish quality. Payment is released against the resulting certificate and the transfer of title.

Its appeal is obvious: the buyer pays for product that has been physically verified in a tank an independent third party has measured. Nothing is taken on trust.

What it requires from a seller is equally real. The product must actually be in an independently operated tank, held in the seller's name, at a terminal willing to admit the buyer's inspector. That is a meaningful commitment of working capital, which is why a seller offering dip and pay on any cargo, at any volume, at no notice should be treated with caution.

Where storage is in place, we will confirm the terminal and the tank before the buyer commits to inspection costs.