A strike may stop the port, but it does not stop laytime or demurrage unless the contract says so.
A question came in.
The vessel arrived at the discharge port. NOR was tendered. Laytime started running. Then the port stopped working because of a strike.
The buyer says those days should be deducted because of strike or force majeure. The port was not operating. The cargo could not physically be discharged. So counting the time would be unfair.
But under English law, unfair does not automatically mean not running.
Does laytime count on those days? Short answer: yes, it does.
If the contract does not expressly say that strike time does not count as laytime or demurrage, time keeps running.
Even if the whole country was on strike, the port stopped working, and the terminal was closed, the question is still one: where does it say that time lost due to strike does not count?
If nowhere, the clock does not stop.
Force majeure works only where, and in the way, the parties have written it into the contract. Not from a press release. Not from the scale of the disruption. From the contract wording.
In GAFTA 48, force majeure is not a universal pause button. More importantly, it is not a buyer’s tool here.
Its logic is Prevention of Shipment: what happens if an event prevents the seller from performing the shipment obligation.
It does not answer the different question: what happens if the buyer is prevented from discharging. And that is the question in a discharge-port strike.
So GAFTA 48 does not produce an automatic formula: strike happened, therefore discharge laytime stopped. That arrow will not draw itself into the contract.
If the parties want a strike at the discharge port to stop laytime or demurrage, that must be stated separately: in the contract itself or in a properly incorporated charterparty.
time lost due to strikes shall not count as laytime
Without words like that, the buyer cannot simply delete the days from the calculation. Even if the strike was real.
once on demurrage, always on demurrage
Demurrage continues to accrue even if a later event occurs which might have interrupted ordinary laytime.
The logic is this: demurrage is no longer ordinary laytime. It is agreed damages for detention of the vessel after laytime has expired.
To stop running demurrage, even clearer wording is needed: the exception must apply not only to laytime, but also to demurrage.
Otherwise, a national strike remains a fact. Unpleasant, expensive, provable, but not deductible.
First read the contract. Even the small print, if there is any.
The relevant clause may be hidden in a charterparty, standard form, additional terms, or a reference everyone saw but nobody opened.
If the words are not there, the position is simple: strike days count as laytime, and after laytime expires, as demurrage.
A strike may stop the port.
But it does not stop laytime or demurrage unless the contract says so.
GAFTA 48 force majeure and a laytime exception are different tools. The first does not replace the second.
If you want to deduct strike days, say so expressly. Otherwise, the clock keeps ticking.