How we work

How an enquiry is qualified

Every enquiry to CBIL, from a buyer, a seller or an intermediary, is read against the same short list before anyone is approached on the other side. This page sets out that list, so a first email can carry what the desk needs and the reply can be an answer rather than a question.

What a buyer shows

1
The receiving side
Where the cargo discharges and who operates it: the terminal, tank farm, silo, warehouse or plant, and whether it is the buyer's own, leased, or a third party's. For gases, chemicals and bulk liquids the terminal operator's written acceptance of the volume and the vessel comes first, because a tonnage that the receiving terminal cannot take is not a requirement.
2
Proportion
The volume, the price basis and the letter of credit are read against the buyer's own register entry: incorporation date, paid-up capital, filed accounts, trading history in that commodity. A company registered last year with nominal capital asking for a monthly cargo worth twenty million dollars is asked for its bank's confirmation before a producer is approached. That is not a judgement; it is the order of the documents.
3
The end user
Who consumes the product and in what process: the fertiliser plant, the refinery, the mill, the road contractor, the packer. Consumption sets the grade and the delivery rhythm, and an enquiry that cannot say who uses the product usually has no buyer behind it yet.
4
Licences and import rules
The importer of record, its licence where the destination requires one, and the standards the product must meet at the border: conformity certificates, registration, carbon and chemical regulation in the European Union, excise and quota in the markets that apply them. These are checked before the offer, not discovered at discharge.

What a seller shows

1
The loading plant
Which refinery, mine, mill, smelter or plant the product loads from, and at which terminal. Origin is fixed by the loading plant and the certificate of origin, not by the seller's address. A trader in a free zone can hold good product; the plant it loads from is what the buyer, the bank and the inspector will see.
2
Principal or intermediary
Whether the seller holds the allocation in its own name, or is offering someone else's. Both can be worked. An intermediary is asked for the producer's written authority to offer that volume, which lets the producer be verified directly; a principal is asked for its export registration and the plant's licences.
3
Can the country supply it
Before a seller is answered, the desk checks that the country the offer is tied to produces the commodity at that scale and can legally export it now: plant capacity, export bans and permits, and the customs record of what actually left. An offer of a volume the country does not produce, or cannot export, is closed on that fact.
4
Branded and licensed product
Polymers, chemicals and refined products sold under a producer's name move through appointed distributors or the producer's own marketing arm. A current distributorship letter or allocation confirmation identifies the supply; a datasheet alone does not.

Why the reply leads with the market

Before a reply is written, the desk checks the commodity itself: who produces it and where it loads, what the destination imports and from which origins, the current price basis, the duties and standards at the border, and whether the volume fits the ships and terminals on the lane. The reply states what that check found, and the decisive fact comes first. Where it closes the enquiry, the reason is given.

No company profiles are exchanged

The desk works from a named requirement or a named allocation, not from brochures. Registration and bank details are given to a counterparty once a transaction has a shape, under a signed document, and not in a first exchange.

Correspondence stays in writing

Specifications, basis, quantities and dates are put on the record by email. Calls and meetings do not replace that record, and the desk does not travel to meet a counterparty before a requirement is defined.

Procedure documents are not a requirement

A letter of intent, a corporate offer or a bank instrument addressed to a party the sender has never dealt with is not treated as an enquiry. The desk answers the questions above, in plain prose, and asks the same of the other side.

Sanctions and origin

Product and payment are screened for sanctioned origins, owners and banks before anything is worked. An onward destination or an origin that fails that screen closes the enquiry with the reason stated, whatever the price.

Names stay on each side

A buyer is not named to a seller, nor a seller to a buyer, until both have been qualified and the terms are agreed. The desk's replies carry its own name only.

What to put in a first email

Six lines are enough. An enquiry that carries them is researched and answered on its substance; one that does not is asked for them first.

Buyers use the Request a Quote form; sellers use Submit an Offer. For a market before a cargo, see market studies.

Commodity, grade and specification, with the standard it is tested against
Quantity per shipment and per year, and the delivery window
Delivery basis and the named port or plant on each side
For buyers: the end user, the receiving terminal or site and its operator, the importer of record
For sellers: the loading plant and terminal, and whether you hold the allocation as principal
Your registered company name, registration number and registered address