Fake Tank Storage Receipts and DTA Documents: How to Verify a Rotterdam or Houston Tank Farm

Fake tank storage receipts and DTA documents are the backbone of most fuel fraud in Rotterdam and Houston. The scheme is always the same: a seller claims to hold EN 590 or D6 in a named terminal, produces a tank storage receipt (TSR), a dip test authorization (DTA) or an injection report, and asks the buyer to send a bank instrument or a deposit before the product can be inspected. Learning how to verify a Rotterdam or Houston tank farm removes this entire category of offers from your desk.

How to verify a tank farm before anything else

A tank farm is a licensed, regulated business with a fixed address, a port authority registration and a published customer process. In Rotterdam, independent terminals operate under Dutch customs supervision and the Port of Rotterdam Authority; in Houston, terminals along the Ship Channel are regulated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the US Coast Guard. Every genuine terminal can be found through the port's public terminal list, has a legal entity in the Dutch or Texan company register, and has a commercial department that handles storage enquiries. Start there, not with the PDF.

Rule: a terminal document is verified only when the terminal confirms it through contact details you obtained independently from the terminal, never from the seller, the broker or the document itself.

What a genuine tank storage receipt contains

Terminals do not use a universal form, but a real receipt or stock statement shares the same elements across operators:

• The terminal's legal name, registered address and the storage contract reference
• The customer's legal name exactly as it appears in the storage contract
• Tank number, product grade, quantity in metric tonnes and cubic metres at 15 °C, with the density used
• The date and time of the gauging, and whether the figure is a shore-tank measurement or a book stock
• Customs status (duty-paid or bonded under a customs warehouse licence)
• Signature of a terminal officer with a named function, and a document or stock-report number

Fraudulent documents typically fail several of these points: the quantity is a round number such as exactly 50,000 MT, the customer is a shell company registered weeks earlier, the "tank number" is a range of tanks, and the customs status is missing because the author does not know it exists.

Why a DTA from a seller is meaningless

A dip test authorization only has value if the terminal issues the tank access permit. Terminals control physical access for safety and customs reasons; an inspector from SGS, Intertek or Bureau Veritas enters the site only on a permit requested by the storage customer and approved by terminal operations. A letter headed "DTA" signed by a seller, a mandate or a "tank farm manager" using a free e-mail address does not open a gate. Ask the seller to have the terminal confirm the permit request directly with your inspector. If this cannot be arranged, there is no product.

Injection reports and Q88s

Two documents appear in nearly every fake Rotterdam or Houston file. The injection report claims that product was "injected" from a vessel or pipeline into a tank; genuine terminals issue discharge or tank-to-tank transfer reports, and the word injection is used mainly in the fraud community. The Q88 is a tanker questionnaire anyone can download for a named vessel; it describes the ship, not a cargo, and proves nothing about product in a tank.

A step-by-step verification

1. Identify the terminal's legal entity through the port authority's list and the national company register, and obtain the main switchboard number from those sources.
2. Call the terminal's commercial department and ask whether the named customer is a storage client and whether a tank access permit has been requested for your inspector. The terminal may decline to answer the first question; it will not decline the second if the seller has done what it claims.
3. Check the customs status. In Rotterdam, bonded product sits in an entrepot under an Article 240 Union Customs Code licence; a seller offering "duty-unpaid EN 590 available for immediate collection" without a customs reference is not describing a real stock position.
4. Appoint your own inspector under your own contract. Never accept an inspection "already paid by the seller" or a report whose number cannot be verified with the inspection company's own office.
5. Only after a witnessed dip and a certificate of quantity and quality issued to you should any commercial document be released.

Houston specifics

Houston offers add American vocabulary: "tank farm in Pasadena", "product in storage under a PPOP". Houston terminals move product through scheduled transfers on their nomination system; it does not sit anonymously waiting for a buyer. A legitimate Houston seller gives you a storage contract reference and lets the terminal confirm a permit for your inspector, just as in Rotterdam.

What a genuine seller looks like

Real holders of tank stock are refiners, trading houses and distributors with a storage contract in their own name. They sell on Incoterms 2020 terms such as FCA terminal or in-tank transfer, they expect inspection before payment and they are not offended when you call the terminal. The proof of their position is not the TSR they email you; it is the terminal's confirmation to your inspector that the tank exists, the product is in it and the permit has been granted.