Rotterdam is one of the world’s most important energy trading hubs, where leading global companies buy and sell refined petroleum products such as ULSD 10 PPM and Jet A1. However, despite its strategic importance, the market increasingly suffers from fake sellers, non-existent products, fictitious tank arrangements, and misleading sales procedures.
These practices damage trust, slow down legitimate trade, and create serious reputational risks for real buyers and sellers operating in the Rotterdam market.
The Core Issue: Procedures Without Products
Many companies want to trade in Rotterdam, yet deals often fail not because of demand or pricing, but due to unrealistic and meaningless procedures. In parallel, fake entities exploit these procedures to deceive real market participants by promising products that do not exist.
As a result, the market becomes flooded with complaints from legitimate companies that fall victim to false sales promises and fabricated documentation.
The TSA Problem: A Fundamental Misunderstanding
One of the most misused documents in the Rotterdam market is the Tank Storage Agreement (TSA).
Let us be clear:
- No real oil buyer signs a TSA without an existing product
- A TSA is a confidential agreement between a tank company and the product owner
- A TSA should never circulate publicly
Sharing a TSA with third parties compromises confidentiality, pricing, and commercial terms between the tank company and the product owner. For this reason alone, asking sellers to present a TSA as proof of product is fundamentally wrong.
Stop Asking for TSA — Prove the Product Instead
If a product exists, the seller must prove its existence, not circulate paperwork.
The market today is filled with brokers holding procedure documents while having no access to product, no authority, and no physical control. Many of these intermediaries do not even know whether they represent a real seller.
In reality, refineries and serious sellers often provide brokers with generic procedures that will never be executed. Once a real buyer appears, those procedures disappear and the transaction moves directly into a proper purchasing process. These documents are nothing more than bait, designed to keep brokers engaged.
How Product Existence Should Be Proven
The criteria for selling oil products are well established and simple:
- If a product exists in a tank, the seller provides a Customer ID
- The seller issues an ATV (Authority to Verify) to the tank company
- The tank company confirms the product’s existence:
- By official email
- By phone confirmation
- Or by physical verification
- Only after confirmation does the buyer proceed with logistics planning
Without product confirmation, there is no seller — only speculation.
The Correct and Practical Sales Procedure
A legitimate ULSD 10 PPM or Jet A1 transaction should follow this structure:
- Seller issues Laycan and Invoice
- Seller provides ATV including invoice and agency details
- Buyer signs the invoice and informs its agency
- Tank company confirms product availability
- Buyer submits its Customer ID and agency details
- Seller’s agency confirms tank readiness
- Injection program is scheduled
- Product is injected into buyer’s tank or vessel
- Payment is made at injection
- Full documentation (SGS, reports, certificates) is delivered
- Parties proceed with future trades
This process protects both buyer and seller and eliminates unnecessary risk.
Selling Oil Is Not Complicated — Procedures Make It So
Selling oil is not inherently complex. It becomes impossible only when artificial procedures replace physical reality.
If you go to a market to buy bread, you see the product, choose it, and pay for it. No one asks you to prove your money before entering the store. Oil trading should follow the same logic: show the product, then trade.
Brokers and traders are not gatekeepers of the market. Their role is simple: facilitate a correct and verifiable transaction.
The Market Has Lost Trust — Especially in Europe
Today, many European buyers avoid transactions involving certain origins not because of politics, but because documents no longer inspire trust. The volume of fake and misleading information has severely damaged credibility.
Declarations without verification are no longer sufficient. Only physical proof restores confidence.
Conclusion: Change Is No Longer Optional
The Rotterdam ULSD 10 PPM and Jet A1 market must abandon meaningless procedures and return to product-first, verification-based trading.
- No product → no sale
- No verification → no payment
- No transparency → no trust
This change must happen immediately. Otherwise, legitimate traders will continue to suffer while fake sellers exploit procedural chaos.
At ATABAŞ, we believe oil trade should be simple, physical, verifiable, and transparent. Anything else is not trade — it is fiction.