What is TTV (tank-to-vessel)?

TTV is a method of delivery used in refined-product trading out of storage hubs — Fujairah, the Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Antwerp range, Houston, Singapore. The seller holds product in a shore tank; the buyer brings a vessel alongside; the product is pumped from tank to ship. Its siblings are TTT, tank-to-tank, where title moves between two accounts inside the same terminal without the product going anywhere, and STS, ship-to-ship, where the transfer happens between two vessels at anchorage.

It is worth being clear that TTV is not an Incoterm and carries no allocation of cost or risk by itself. FOB, CFR and CIF still decide who pays for what and where risk passes. TTV describes the physical operation; the Incoterm describes the commercial consequence of it.

The sequence is fairly standard, and each step exists because something once went wrong without it. The buyer nominates a vessel and the seller and terminal accept it. The seller issues an authorisation to board, which lets the buyer’s appointed inspector onto the terminal. A dip test authorisation permits the inspector to gauge the nominated tank and draw samples.

The inspector — SGS, Intertek, Bureau Veritas or a terminal-approved equivalent — measures quantity by ullage or by meter and takes samples for analysis against the contractual specification. Only once quantity and quality are confirmed does pumping begin. On completion the surveyor issues the outturn figures, a certificate of quantity and a certificate of quality, and the bill of lading is raised against the delivered quantity.

Payment is very often structured around that inspection: "dip and pay" means the buyer wires against a satisfactory dip test rather than in advance. That is the whole point of the procedure — it puts an independent measurement between the money and the cargo.

A tank storage receipt or holding certificate from the terminal, in the seller’s name, is the document that actually evidences product. It is issued by the terminal operator, not by the seller, and it can be verified by contacting the terminal. An authorisation to board and a dip test authorisation are instructions, not evidence of ownership.

Everything after the transfer is standard: the certificates of quantity and quality from the independent inspector, and the bill of lading. What matters is that the parcel-specific documents come from parties with something to lose — a terminal operator and an accredited inspection company — rather than from the counterparty asking to be paid.

The refined-products market has a large circulating population of offers built on this vocabulary: TTV or TTT allocations, in Fujairah or Rotterdam, at a steep discount to the published index, accompanied by an LOI or ICPO, a soft corporate offer, and a tank storage receipt that cannot be verified. The procedure is real; a great many of the offers quoting it are not.

The mechanics of the scam follow the paperwork. A fee is required before the dip test — for the dip test authorisation itself, for terminal access, for the inspector’s attendance, for a "tank rental" extension. Each request is plausible in isolation and each one moves money before anybody independent has looked at a tank.

The defences are simple and they are procedural rather than clever. Verify the tank storage receipt directly with the terminal, using contact details you find yourself. Appoint your own inspector rather than accepting the seller’s. Pay against the inspector’s certificate, not before it. And apply the same arithmetic used on any discounted cargo: a genuine parcel in a liquid hub sells near the index, because the seller has other buyers.