© 2026 Observater Surveys and Services Group. All rights reserved.
Observater Surveys and Services Group · Port Harcourt · Nigeria
When bulk cargo settles by weight at Port Harcourt, our draft surveyors provide the independent figure: readings at all six points before and after the operation, corrections applied from the ship’s own tables, and a certificate with the full calculation, confirmed in writing before work begins.
Get a Surveyor Moving Email the InstructionThe scale belongs to the other side. The weighbridge, the silo meter, and the terminal tally at Port Harcourt belongs to a party with a position. The displacement of the vessel herself is the one scale that has no side.
Six readings, honestly taken, or a figure that drifts. Quay-side-only readings and single-party surveys are how weight disputes are born. Six marks, two sides, proper corrections: that is how they end.
The density sample decides real money. Tide and river flow change the water the ship floats in, and with it the tonnes she carries on paper. The sample drawn at depth at the moment of reading keeps the figure honest.
Port Harcourt settles wheat, fertilizer, and bulk cargoes on this number. The bulk trades over Port Harcourt are bought and sold by weight. The party holding the independent draft figure collects on it; the party without one settles on somebody else’s.
One matter at a port rarely travels alone. Our desks below stand at the same quay, on the same instruction line — choose the unit your matter needs.
Our highly trained draft surveyors carry out all types of draft surveys, draught surveys, and bulk weight determinations at Port Harcourt Port, Nigeria, through the group’s active operations in Nigeria: initial and final drafts for discharge and loading, intermediate drafts where parcels split, lightering and barge drafts, and joint surveys where both sides sign one figure. The port’s bulk trades, wheat, fertilizer, and bulk cargoes, settle on these numbers, and the report reads the same as the file from any port we serve. Also see: cargo surveyors in Port Harcourt.
At Port Harcourt our draft surveyors work the survey end to end: initial readings at all six marks before cargo moves, final readings when it stops, the vessel’s own hydrostatic data for every correction, water density drawn at depth rather than assumed, and ballast movements accounted between the two conditions. The result is one weight with its working shown, issued to the instructing party first and built to survive the argument that follows a shortage.
Disputed weight at Port Harcourt ends one of two ways: with an independent figure, or with the stronger party’s figure. We provide the first: draft results reconciled against shore records line by line, operational interruptions documented in real time, and a protest issued in time to matter, in the form underwriters and adjusters accept.
From the Observater Desk
A draft survey at Port Harcourt puts the cargo weight beyond argument — read by our own surveyors, calculated to standard, and annexed so the arithmetic can be followed line by line. Instruct before loading or discharge begins and the figure travels with the trade.
Write to the DeskAnswered around the clock · scope & fee in writing firstShippers & terminals. A joint figure signed at the ship protects the honest operator from the other side’s arithmetic.
Cargo insurers. Shortage claims measured at the vessel settle on evidence instead of estimates.
Banks & financiers. The financed tonnage exists because an independent hand measured it.
Lawyers & adjusters. A calculation shown line by line survives the scrutiny a summary never could.
Charterers & owners. The draft figure closes laytime, shortage, and bill-of-lading arguments before they grow teeth.
Traders & receivers. The independent weight is the invoice’s defense: what was paid for is what was measured.
Named surveyor, scope in writing. Before anything starts you know who attends, when, and exactly what they will do, on paper.
The fee agreed first. The fee is put in writing before work begins, so the decision is made with the numbers in front of you.
One interest per matter. If we act for the other side in your dispute, we tell you and decline. Independence is the product.
Work starts on your go-ahead. Nothing begins until you confirm in writing, findings reach you first, and we answer 24/7.
Read properly at all marks with corrections from the vessel’s own tables, a draft survey determines bulk weight to the tolerance the trade settles on, and its strength is independence: the vessel’s displacement is the one scale no commercial party owns.
Two attendances frame the operation, hours each, timed to the ship: the initial before work starts, the final when it ends, and the certificate carries the complete calculation.
The fee follows what the operation needs: initial and final drafts, intermediates, or a joint survey. You see it in writing before anything starts, and it is small against one settled weight dispute.
Yes, and lightering and barge operations between them, through the group’s active operations in Nigeria, with the attendance confirmed in writing before work begins.
Draft surveys at Port Harcourt, Nigeria are carried out by Observater Surveys and Services Group: independent, resident at the port, and answering around the clock. One email to the desk brings back the surveyor’s name and scope in writing, and attendance follows day or night.
It depends on the scope — the operation, the hours, and what must be attended. What never varies is the sequence: the fee is quoted in writing before attendance, agreed before boarding, and there are no additions invented afterwards. One email describing the vessel and the operation brings the figure back.
Read carefully and corrected properly — trim, list, density, and deductibles from the official tables — a draft survey settles bulk tonnage to a small fraction of the cargo, which is why trades and laytime statements rest on it. The working is annexed so the arithmetic can be followed line by line.
The figure taken today settles the argument that comes later
Whoever holds the cargo pays for what nobody counted. Whoever ships it defends a price from an ocean away. Whoever runs the vessel settles on the recorded figure, whoever insures it pays what the evidence supports, and whoever financed it needs the security to be real. From whichever seat you instruct, send the vessel, the cargo, or the dispute, and who attends, when, and at what fee comes back in writing before work starts. One interest per matter: we act for your side only, and you read the findings first.
Get a Surveyor Moving Email the InstructionInternational Marine Cargo Surveyors, Claims Handlers and Technical Consultants in Africa. On-ground expertise, global reach: anywhere you go in Africa, we are already there, with capacity to serve globally.
Observater Surveys and Services Group · ops@observater.com · All attendances are performed under our standard terms of business, available on request. Also see: Cargo Surveyors in Port Harcourt · Marine Surveyors in Port Harcourt · Bunker Surveyors in Port Harcourt.
When precision matters, Observater Surveys Group is your Partner of Choice
© 2026 Observater Surveys and Services Group. All rights reserved.