Glossary

A system in which fully laden barges (lighters) may be loaded aboard a larger vessel for transport. The host vessel or mothership is specially designed or modified with a door at the waterline to facilitate loading and unloading the barges. Since the LASH vessels have onboard cranes and the barges are floated away from the ship, they do not require special docks or terminals.

Days allowed for loading and unloading a ship.

Applies to a shipment that is not large enough to fill a standard cargo container. Such a shipment may be combined with other shipments going to the same destination port. This is called groupage.

see Irrevocable Letter of Credit

In today’s trading environment, cargoes of some commodities can change hands many times, although voyages can often be measured in a few days. Nevertheless documents need to be prepared and physically checked following each ownership transfer. The result of this is cargoes arriving at ports of destination before the documents.

A ship owner or carrier is not required to hand over a cargo if the related Bill of Lading is not available. Thus potentially bringing about delays and additional cost. Traders' Letters of Indemnity for Missing Documents (LoIs) have traditionally been used to enable the Carrier to release a cargo to the ultimate receiver/buyer, and to allow payment to be collected for a cargo (by other parties in the related chain of sell/buy transactions) in the absence of the documents required under normal contract payment terms. An LoI is of course only as reliable as the issuing company. For this reason many companies insist that the document must be countersigned by a bank of acceptable quality.

The London Interbank Offered Rate is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which banks borrow unsecured funds from other banks in the London wholesale money market (or interbank market).

Freight charge which includes the cost of loading in the port of departure but not the costs in the port of destination.

The Lloyd's Register Group is a maritime classification society and independent risk management organisation providing risk assessment and mitigation services and management systems certification. Historically, as Lloyd's Register of Shipping, it was a specifically maritime organisation. In the late 20th century, it diversified into other sectors, including oil & gas, process industries, nuclear and rail.