Why "POP" by E-mail PDF Is Never Proof of Product

Every week, buyers of EN 590, Jet A-1, D6 or ICUMSA 45 receive a "proof of product" package: a tank storage receipt, an SGS or Intertek analysis, an injection report, a product passport, an authorisation to verify, sometimes a photo of drums or a tank gauge. The package arrives as PDF attachments from a free e-mail account or from a domain registered weeks earlier. It is presented as the step that must satisfy the buyer before the buyer shows funds. It satisfies nothing, and understanding why is the foundation of fraud prevention in physical commodity trade.

A PDF is a picture of a claim

A document attached to an e-mail is a file that anyone can edit. Inspection reports of real cargoes circulate widely; their layout, stamps and signatures are copied into new reports with new tank numbers and new dates. Tank storage receipts are built from terminal letterheads found online. Refinery allocation letters and "product passports" use the logos of well-known producers who have never heard of the sender. None of this requires skill. The document looks right because it was built from documents that were right, for someone else, at some other time.

Rule: proof of product is not a document. It is a verification performed by a party you appoint, at a location you can identify, on a date you choose.

Why the sequence is backwards

The POP-before-POF argument sounds reasonable: why should a buyer show money before seeing product? The honest answer is that neither side shows anything to the other directly. In a legitimate transaction the parties sign a sale and purchase agreement, the buyer's bank issues or pre-advises an instrument, and the seller's product is verified by an independent inspector under a dip test authorisation at the terminal. Banks and inspectors are the verification layer. A seller who insists that PDFs must be accepted as proof is asking to remove that layer.

What each "POP" document really is

Common construction errors in fake packages

• Tank numbers that do not exist at the named terminal, or tank capacities inconsistent with the quantity claimed.
• Analysis dates before the injection date, or signatures of inspectors who left the company years ago.
• A storage receipt for a terminal in Rotterdam issued in a time zone and language that do not match.
• Product passports for EN 590 listing sulphur in percent or omitting CFPP, showing they were adapted from a fuel oil sheet.
• "SGS report" file names containing the words "sample" or "template".
• Contact details for the terminal and the inspector that lead to mobile numbers and free e-mail accounts.

What real verification looks like

1. Know the counterparty. Corporate registry extract, beneficial owners, sanctions screening, references. A seller that will not be identified has no product.
2. Sign the contract first. The SPA defines the product, quantity, terminal, inspection procedure and the instrument. No verification happens before signature because no one has an obligation.
3. Appoint the inspector yourself. SGS, Intertek, Bureau Veritas, Saybolt or an accredited laboratory, engaged and paid by the buyer. The inspector contacts the terminal under the DTA and reports directly to the buyer.
4. Verify through institutions. Terminal confirmation, inspection company confirmation and, where supply is from a refinery, bank-to-bank or compliance-to-compliance confirmation.
5. Verify the vessel, not the paper. For cargoes afloat, the IMO number, the AIS track, the ship manager and the port agent are checkable facts.

How honest sellers respond

A refinery, a terminal operator or an established trader has no difficulty with any of this. They expect KYC, they expect a signed contract before inspection and they are used to buyers' inspectors in their tanks. What they will not do is hand over PDFs to an unknown party before a contract exists, because that would expose their own documents to exactly the misuse described above. When a counterparty offers a full POP package by e-mail on the first day, it is not generosity. It is the product.

Treat every attachment as a claim to be tested, pay only the people you appoint, and keep the banks and inspectors where they belong: between the parties.