Which African ports do you cover for steel surveys?
Our own offices and vetted networks cover the major coastal gateways and key inland hubs across East, West, North, and Southern Africa, with coverage running to 45+ ports. Because the surveyors are resident, attendance does not carry fly-in costs or fly-in delays, and it comes with local knowledge no visitor can match.
How do you handle communication with local authorities and partners?
Our local surveyors are adept at navigating the customs and practices of their respective port authorities, customs officials, and logistics providers. We act as a professional bridge, keeping communication clear during joint steel surveys.
What makes your steel survey reports suitable for the African market?
Our reports are written to international standards for insurers, but with specific, factual context that explains the local realities, such as weather, infrastructure, or handling methods, that may have contributed to the situation. This clarity is essential for all parties to reach a fair understanding of a steel claim.
Do you also survey cargo other than steel?
Yes. This page covers our steel cargo work. For general cargo, containers, project cargo, draft surveys and bunker surveys, see our port pages, including our marine and cargo surveyors in Djibouti page and our Africa cargo damage and claims recovery page.
How do you prove whether rust came from seawater or condensation?
By chemistry, not by eye, and in two tiers. At the survey, a silver nitrate field test gives an immediate indication of whether sea salts are present on the affected surfaces. Where the value at stake or the dispute warrants confirmation, samples are sealed under documented chain of custody and analyzed by approved partner laboratories. The test results are read together with the wetting pattern, the stow positions affected, ventilation records, and the voyage weather. Stated with its method and its evidence, the finding survives challenge from the other side’s surveyor.
Is flash rust real damage?
It is a real condition with a usually modest commercial effect. Uniform atmospheric rust on unprotected surfaces often cleans or pickles out and may not affect the end use at all, which is why it is graded rather than simply declared. The danger runs both ways: paying a rejection-level claim for a cleaning-level condition, or dismissing pitting as cosmetic. Grading, surface by surface, is what keeps both sides honest.
The steel was fine at the port but arrived inland bent. What now?
This is the classic corridor dispute, and it is decided by whether a discharge record exists. Where our tally documented the cargo at the quay, the delivery survey upcountry is compared line by line and the damage is located on its leg, which is exactly how the Mombasa to Kampala beams case on this page was resolved. Under One Team, One Fight the port record and the inland survey sit in one file, whether the delivery point is Kampala, Addis Ababa, or the Copperbelt.
What should a receiver keep when steel arrives damaged?
Everything, until the surveyor has seen it: the wrappers and strapping, the delivery notes with your remarks written before signature, photographs taken as the truck opened, and the cargo itself, unmoved beyond safety. Note damage on the delivery receipt in specific terms, notify the carrier in writing at once, and do not begin reconditioning or disposal before the survey, because the packaging and the stow tell most of the story and they only tell it once.
There was no pre-shipment survey. Is the steel claim already lost?
Narrowed, not lost. The baseline is reconstructed from records that exist independently of any survey: mill test certificates fix what left production, in chemistry and dimensions; a clean bill of lading records the carrier’s acknowledgment of the cargo’s apparent good order at loading, a starting point tribunals recognize; and tally, stevedore, and interchange records at both ends bracket each leg. Then the steel itself testifies. The maturity of the oxidation is read against the voyage time. Damage that follows the stow geometry rather than the product points to transit. A silver nitrate field test finding sea salts answers the origin question by itself, because the mill had none. And rust found under intact wrappers shows the water arrived after packing, not before. The strongest steel files still start at origin, which is why standing pre-shipment instructions exist, but a file that starts at destination is a reconstruction exercise, not a lost cause.
