CIF and FOB are not the same file. They do not produce the same paper. They do not fail in the same place. A first note that uses the two words as if they were interchangeable is already a circular.
The difference is not a textbook. It is who carries the cargo from the load port to the discharge, and who is responsible until it gets there. Everything else — the procedure, the instrument, the number — sits on top of that fact. If the fact is not said, the rest is theatre.
This note is about that fact, and about what a serious desk names before it names a price.
What the two words actually decide
FOB is a lift at a named port. The buyer, or the buyer’s vessel, takes the cargo there. Title and risk move at that rail. The questions that matter are whether the product is at that port, whether the port can still load, and whether the window is real.
CIF is a delivery. The seller carries the cargo to a named discharge. The questions that matter are whether that discharge can be reached, whether the freight is in the number, and whether the paper that will travel with the cargo can be checked before anyone is asked to commit.
A desk that can take FOB at one port cannot be assumed to want CIF at another. A seller who can perform CIF cannot be assumed to perform FOB, or the reverse. Saying both, in the same sentence, without saying which is the file, is how a brochure stays useful after the cargo has been decided.
What changes when the product is real
When the product is real, the manner of delivery is fixed early. Not as a menu. As the file. The load port, or the discharge, is named. The window is a date, or a band of dates. The party who will perform that leg is the party who can be reached.
The documents follow that choice. An FOB lift and a CIF lift do not ask for the same pack, and they should not be forced through one. Transaction-specific documents are prepared for the file in front of us. A procedure copied from an unrelated deal and offered as the CIF, or as the FOB, is not proof. It is the theatre.
Proof still precedes pressure. Neither term earns an instrument in the first paragraph. If the cargo cannot be shown for the manner of delivery that was named, it will not be shown by changing the letters.
What the circular does with the letters
The circular likes both. CIF/FOB. Any port. Flexible. The letters are left in so that more inboxes can keep the paper. Each reader is invited to assume the version that suits them.
That is how a name is worn out. One desk is asked for a vessel. Another is asked for a discharge. A third is sent a procedure that belongs to neither. By the time a serious counterpart sees it, the manner of delivery has been shopped along with the number.
We will not market an allocation we cannot substantiate, and we will not substantiate it as both. If it is FOB, say the port. If it is CIF, say the discharge, or the range that can actually be worked. If neither can be said, there is no file yet.
How a first note should use the words
Say which it is. Say the port, or the discharge. Say the window. Say whether the interest is a single lift, a trial, or something intended to run. Then, if you wish, the number.
A trial should name which term it is. A second lift, if it follows, is usually quieter because that choice has already been used, not described. Origin and load port are still not the same question. CIF does not answer it. FOB does not either, unless the port is named.
We have declined files that arrived as both. Not because either term was wrong, but because the paper was asking us to choose, and then to circulate the choice. Choosing for a circular is not the work.
How to begin
Please reach out to us with potential opportunities and we shall advise on a case-by-case basis. Write to business@thecristianigroup.com.
Say who you are. Say in what capacity you act. Say the product, and say CIF or FOB — not both, unless you can say which is the file and which is a later possibility. Then the port or the discharge, the window, and the scale.
Why a trial that cannot become term was never a trial sits in Trial Lift, Then Term. Why origin is not a load port sits in Origin and Load Port Are Not the Same Question. The fuller account of how a file moves sits on How We Work.
Replies are handled by the firm, in our own name.
