Four Service Lines. One Standard of Work.

Logistics, ship agency, husbandry, and brokerage. Each is its own discipline with its own failure modes — and each gets the same documented, disbursement-transparent, phone-actually-answered treatment.

What You Actually Need from an Agent in Ghana

Most of what a shipping agency does is unglamorous: staging paperwork, briefing authorities, coordinating berths, counting provisions, reconciling port charges. The difference between a good agency and a frustrating one is in how well those small things are done — and in whether the people doing them pick up the phone when something shifts.

BSTL operates across Tema and Takoradi with four connected service lines. Most clients engage more than one. A charterer with a Takoradi call will typically need ship agency, husbandry, and a protective-agency layer on top; a project-cargo contractor will lean on logistics and ship agency together. The cross-over is the point — the same people who know the port are the people arranging the crew change.

The sections below describe what each line actually involves, who it's for, and the kind of engagement we recommend. If your situation doesn't map cleanly onto one of them, say so in an email and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right agent for it.

Service Lines

The Four Things We Do

Overview first — then the detail. Click through for the full treatment on each service.

Logistics & Cargo Services

Customs clearance, project cargo handling, air freight, warehousing, and inland haulage. The practical work of getting shipments through Ghana's ports and onto the right vehicles without getting stuck in a bonded yard for reasons nobody can explain.

Explore Logistics

Ship Agency

General and protective agency for tankers, bulkers, OSVs, and container vessels. Pilot and tug liaison, berth coordination, customs and port-state paperwork, and the local relationships that turn a 72-hour call into a 36-hour one.

Learn More

Husbandry Services

Crew changes, provisions, spares delivery, medical support, bunkers, technical assistance. The 24/7 side of the business — where a named person is on duty and a master's call gets answered, not queued.

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Logistics & cargo
01 — Logistics

Logistics & Cargo Services

Moving cargo through a Ghanaian port involves more parties than outside operators often expect: customs, ports authority, destination inspection, clearing agents, the warehouse operator, the haulage contractor. We sit in the middle and make those parties talk to each other on time.

Our logistics work spans containerised freight, break-bulk, project cargo, over-dimensional movements, air freight through Kotoka International, warehousing, and inland haulage to and from northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Côte d'Ivoire. Where your shipment needs special handling — reefer, hazardous, over-weight — we plan the route before it arrives, not after.

  • Import and export customs clearance
  • Project cargo and over-dimensional handling
  • Air freight coordination through Accra
  • Bonded warehousing and cross-dock facilities
  • Inland haulage across the West African corridor
  • Destination inspection and regulatory compliance
Who it's for Offshore contractors, EPC firms, importers on tight charter clocks, regional distributors, and anyone whose shipment would otherwise get stuck in a bonded yard for reasons that seem to change every day.
Ship agency
02 — Ship Agency

Ship Agency (General & Protective)

Ship agency is the work that keeps a vessel legal, berthed, and moving. Before arrival, we notify the authorities, secure the berth, pre-clear documentation, and brief pilot and tug services. During the call, we handle customs, immigration, port-state control, cargo coordination, bunker and stores arrangements, and any incidents that come up. After departure, we settle the port accounts and hand over to the next agent.

We operate as both General Agent (appointed by the owner) and Protective Agent (appointed by the charterer alongside a general agent). Protective agency is particularly useful on voyages where the owner's appointed agent and the charterer's interests diverge — a second set of eyes on port operations, disbursement accuracy, and laytime reporting, acting solely in the charterer's interest.

  • Pre-arrival documentation and authority notifications
  • Berth coordination with port authorities
  • Pilot, tug, and boatman arrangements
  • Customs, immigration, and port-state control
  • Cargo operations oversight and laytime reporting
  • Disbursement accounts with full voucher backup
Who it's for Tanker and OSV operators, dry-bulk owners, container-line agents, and charterers wanting protective-agency coverage on calls where they're paying but not appointing the general agent.
Husbandry
03 — Husbandry

Husbandry Services

Husbandry is what happens when the ship is no longer loading or discharging, but still needs things done. Crew rotations. Provisions. Spare parts coming in from the OEM and clearing the same day. A doctor aboard for a sick engineer. Bunkers and fresh water. Technical contractors. The reason husbandry tends to get mishandled is that it's everything at once, often at night, always time-sensitive.

We run husbandry as a 24/7 desk with named on-duty staff. When a master calls at 3am about a medevac, there's a person with the keys, the contacts, and the authority to act — not a pager queue and a response window. For fleet operators with regular Ghanaian calls, we can hold stock of commonly requested spares and provisions to compress lead times further.

  • Crew change logistics (visas, transport, hotel, repatriation)
  • Medical support and medevac coordination
  • Provisions, fresh water, and bunker arrangements
  • Spares clearance and on-board delivery
  • Technical contractor coordination
  • Cash-to-master and welfare arrangements
Who it's for Owners, managers, and charterers of any vessel calling Ghana — from OSVs working Jubilee and TEN to bulkers transiting Tema on a longer rotation.
Brokerage
04 — Brokerage

Cargo & Ship Brokerage

Our brokerage work connects cargo owners, charterers, and vessel operators across the West African coast. We negotiate voyage and time charters, handle sale-and-purchase conversations for vessels operating in-region, and provide the market intelligence that makes the difference between a reasonable rate and a rate you'll regret next quarter.

The value of a regional brokerage desk isn't in shouting rates down a phone line — it's in knowing which tonnage is where, which owners will take which cargo, and what the coast is actually doing this week. Four decades of relationships on the Ghanaian side give us that view. We don't pretend to be the biggest brokerage house in West Africa; we are a trusted one.

  • Voyage & time charter negotiations
  • Sale & purchase of vessels
  • Freight contract management
  • West African market intelligence
  • Commodity & dry bulk brokerage
Speak to a Broker
How to Engage

From First Email to Port Call

Most new client engagements take a surprisingly short time to get moving if the scoping email is clear. Here's what works.

01

Send a Scoping Email

Include: vessel name, flag, ETA, port of call, cargo (or cargo plans), owner/charterer structure, and what services you're looking for. If it's a call you've made through Ghana before, tell us what went well or badly — it shapes our approach.

02

Receive a Proforma DA

Within a working day, you'll have a proforma disbursement account — the expected port charges, our agency fees, and any third-party costs we've identified, all itemised. No mystery "miscellaneous" line.

03

Formal Appointment

Letter of appointment exchanged. Authorities pre-notified. Documentation staged. A named operations lead assigned — that person becomes your point of contact through the call and any follow-on calls.

04

Execute and Settle

We run the call with daily updates, close it out with a final disbursement account and full supporting vouchers, and hand over to your next agent or your internal ops team. Clean exit. Open door for the next one.

Frequently Asked

Questions Clients Actually Ask

Do you handle both Tema and Takoradi?

Yes. Both ports, with operational teams in each. Most oil & gas work runs through Takoradi; most general trade runs through Tema. Many principals give us nominations for both.

Can you act as Protective Agent alongside another General Agent?

Yes. Protective agency is a regular part of our ship-agency work for charterers. We coordinate professionally with the appointed general agent and report exclusively to our principal.

What's your coverage model for live port calls?

A named lead operator on the file, with 24/7 husbandry desk coverage. Escalation to the Operations Director is a single step. Authority contacts are all active relationships, not cold outreach.

Can we audit your HSEQ posture before appointing you?

Yes — we expect it from oil & gas principals and welcome it from everyone else. Our HSEQ Manager handles the documentation exchange and site walk-through directly.

How do you handle disbursement transparency?

Full vouchers attached. Port authority charges reconciled to the published tariff. Our agency fee clearly separated from third-party costs. If something on the proforma differs from the final, we explain it — we don't bury it in the total.

Tell us about the vessel and the port.

A short email is usually all we need to come back with a proforma and a straight answer on whether we're the right agent for the call. Our operations desk is staffed around the clock.

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