A copper mining group required industrial grade ammonium nitrate for its blasting operations, with delivery to a landlocked site well inland from the nearest seaport. Sea freight plus onward trucking would have added both cost and handling risk to a product that does not tolerate repeated transfer.
Scope of supply
- Industrial grade ammonium nitrate, prilled, in sealed bulk wagons
- 2,000 MT in the first shipment, against a larger framework quantity
- Rail transport from loading point to the destination border crossing
- Full documentation set: certificate of analysis, packing list, transport declarations
The constraint
Rail wagons are not containers. Once a rake arrives at the border, the receiving side has a fixed window — in this case two days — to bring the wagons in and discharge them. Beyond that window, demurrage runs per wagon per day and accumulates quickly across a thirty-plus wagon rake. The commercial risk therefore sat not in procurement but in the last forty-eight hours of the journey.
How it was handled
Loading was sequenced so that the rake arrived as a single block rather than in fragments, which is what usually triggers unplanned standing time. Border formalities were prepared in advance of arrival, with the document set travelling ahead of the goods. Arrival notice, discharge status and wagon release were tracked daily and reported to both sides in a single running reference thread, so that any delay was visible to the party able to act on it while it could still be recovered.
Outcome
The shipment was delivered complete. Where standing time did occur, it was documented against a clear timeline rather than disputed after the fact, and the framework moved on to subsequent quantities under the same terms.