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Observater Surveys and Services Group · West Africa
Every charter dispute returns to two moments: delivery and redelivery. The surveyor’s name, scope, and fee in writing before work begins, at every port on the Gulf of Guinea and the West African coast.
Instruct the Desk WhatsAppIn one paragraph
On-hire and off-hire surveyors in west africa are provided by Observater Surveys and Services Group, an independent, ISO 9001-certified marine and cargo survey practice headquartered at Mombasa that operates survey desks at more than 45 ports in more than 25 countries across East, West, Central, Southern, and North Africa and answers instructions 24 hours a day in English, French, and Portuguese. Every charter dispute returns to two moments: delivery and redelivery.
Every charter dispute returns to two moments: delivery and redelivery. Our surveyors certify both at any African port, the vessel walked from forecastle to steering flat, condition and damage photographed, holds inspected, and bunkers sounded independently, so the hire statement and the damage claim both rest on measurement, not memory.
This desk answers for West Africa specifically: the ports named below, the trades that cross them, and the corridors behind them. It works to the continental practice described at On-Hire and Off-Hire Surveys in Africa, with the same surveyors, the same method, and the same report at every quay in the region.
The baseline that makes the two-year-later argument short: condition, cleanliness, and damage certified with photographs that place every mark in time.
ROB established by independent sounding, temperatures and densities applied, the figure certified with the working attached.
Holds inspected against the next cargo’s standard, failures named specifically, and re-inspection attended after remedy.
Off-hire damage read against the on-hire record, what is new, what was there, and what the evidence will actually carry.
West Africa ships the world’s cocoa and much of its cashew, cotton, rubber, and sesame, and imports rice, wheat, vehicles, machinery, and the equipment of the oil industry. Bagged cargo and containers dominate; bulk moves through the fertilizer, grain, and clinker berths. Lagos, Tema, Abidjan, and Dakar are also the gateways of the Sahel, which makes transit custody the region’s standing argument.
For on-hire and off-hire surveyors that mix decides the checklist: the desk arrives knowing how each of these cargoes fails, what the trade argues about, and which measurement ends the argument.
Nigeria (Lagos, Port Harcourt, Onne, Warri, Calabar), Ghana (Tema, Takoradi), Togo, Benin (Cotonou), Ivory Coast (Abidjan, San Pedro), Senegal (Dakar), Guinea (Conakry, Kamsar), Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mauritania. Each name opens that country’s own desk; our surveyors travel beyond the port cities by arrangement, with travel scoped and quoted as part of the instruction.
Abidjan and Tema reach Ouagadougou; Lomé and Cotonou reach Niamey; Dakar reaches Bamako; Lagos reaches Kano and the north. Transit boxes change hands at the port, the rail head, the border, and the inland depot, and our surveyors meet them at each where instructed, keeping seal and count on one record from ship’s rail to delivery.
Condition surveys for owners, charterers, Clubs, and buyers who cannot travel: structure, machinery, outfit, and certificates examined against the purpose of the survey, with the honest findings stated rather than softened. Accident and incident investigation follows the same discipline at any port on the map: the scene secured, the sequence established from records and fresh statements, and the finding written for the tribunal it may reach.
On-hire and off-hire bunker surveys, bunker quantity surveys at stem, sealed sampling, and consumption investigations run alongside the marine work at every desk, with the working annexed to the certificate. The continental practice is described at Bunker Surveyors in Africa.
Every instruction on the continent arrives at one operations desk, which names the surveyor, confirms the scope and fee in writing, arranges boarding at berth or anchorage, and follows the file to the report. The desk answers day and night, in English, French, or Portuguese, and copies the appointing firm on every report where the instruction came through an agent or a survey firm abroad.
Name the port, the vessel or the parcel, and the timing. The surveyor’s name, the scope, and the fee come back in writing, in English, French, or Portuguese, and attendance follows the operation, not office hours. Instruct once and the name follows the work: files across the coast arrive signed Observater, and the parties who read them start asking for Observater by name.
One call at an African port often opens several files, the cargo, the fuel, the vessel itself, and the group holds them all. Step into the desk your matter needs; one instruction line carries the rest.
Observater Surveys and Services Group, independent, ISO 9001-certified, headquartered at Mombasa, with desks across West Africa and the rest of the continent, reporting to the instructing party first and answering day and night.
Every port named above, with attendance beyond the port cities by arrangement; one instruction can cover several ports across the region.
One email to ops@observater.com naming the port, the vessel or cargo, and the timing; the surveyor’s name, scope, and fee come back in writing before attendance.
On scope, quoted in writing before attendance; matters spanning several West Africa ports are quoted as one file, and regular instructing parties receive panel or program terms.
Instruction by email or WhatsApp is answered day and night; attendance at the West Africa port cities is typically arranged within a day.
Yes, at rail heads, inland depots, border posts, and receivers’ premises along the corridors named above, on one file with the port attendance.
English, French, or Portuguese, as the country and the instructing party require.
Yes, panel and program terms are quoted in writing, with agreed rates, turnaround, and format, and the same surveyors on your file every time.
The method never bends to the port. Before attendance, the instruction is confirmed in writing with the surveyor named, the scope stated in the words the instructing party used, and the fee fixed. On site, findings are made from measurement and photograph, not from what the parties say happened; every figure that will matter later is taken twice and the working kept. Afterwards, the report goes to the instructing party before anyone else, dated and signed by the surveyor who stood there. The same three stages govern on-hire and off-hire surveyors at every desk in West Africa.
Turnaround is agreed at instruction and kept. Routine on-hire and off-hire surveyors reports across West Africa issue within days of attendance; urgent matters get a preliminary the same day and the full file as soon as the evidence is complete. Every report carries the surveyor’s name, the dates and places of attendance, the parties present, the method, the findings, and the conclusions kept separate from the findings so the reader can see where fact ends and judgment begins.
Who appoints on-hire and off-hire surveyors in West Africa: the party that will have to defend a number. Underwriters defending a claim decision; traders defending a shipment against a buyer’s rejection; owners defending a vessel against a charterer’s deductions; banks defending a facility against a warehouse; Clubs defending a member against a cargo claim. The desk works for one of them at a time, tells the others so, and produces the record that lets the appointing party hold its ground.
Fees are quoted in writing before attendance and agreed before work begins, no figure is left to be discovered on the invoice. Single attendances are quoted for the scope described; matters that run across several ports or several days are quoted as one file; regular instructing parties are offered panel or program terms with agreed rates, turnaround, and format. Where the instruction changes on site, the change is confirmed in writing before it is charged.
The coast alternates between English and French from one border to the next, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia in English; Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Senegal, and Guinea in French. The desk issues instructions, certificates, and reports in either, as the country and the instructing party require.Local practice is respected and recorded: port procedures, customs presence, and the working hours of terminals are noted in the report so a reader abroad understands why the attendance ran as it did.
The value of on-hire and off-hire surveyors lies entirely in who signed it. The desk’s surveyors are employed by the group, not hired per job from whoever is nearest; they are trained to one checklist and one report format; and they are answerable to a headquarters that reads their reports before the client does. ISO 9001 certification is the external check on that system. The result is a file from Douala that reads like a file from Durban, and a name the reader recognises from the last one.Instruct once and the name follows the work: files across the coast arrive signed Observater, and the parties who read them start asking for Observater by name.
Name the port, the vessel or the parcel, and the timing. The surveyor’s name, the scope, and the fee come back in writing, in English, French, or Portuguese, and attendance follows the operation, not office hours. Instruct once and the name follows the work: files across the coast arrive signed Observater, and the parties who read them start asking for Observater by name.
Observater Surveys and Services Group · ops@observater.com · All attendances are performed under our standard terms of business, available on request. Also see: On-Hire and Off-Hire Surveys in Africa · Cargo Inspections in Africa · Claims Handlers in Africa.
When precision matters, Observater Surveys Group is your Partner of Choice
© 2026 Observater Surveys and Services Group. All rights reserved.