HCOTEG92260 - Exports: Aircraft and ships stores and bunkers

Aircraft stores and fuel

AVTUR or AVGAS may be loaded duty-paid on an aircraft at any place in the UK for use on a flight to a place outside the UK. Either ‘netting’ or direct drawback of excise duty may be claimed on duty-paid oil to be used after the aircraft has cleared outwards at the customs airport of departure, in which case evidence of loading (e.g. invoice or receipted delivery note) and of the aircraft movement will be required. Neither ‘netting’nor direct drawback may be claimed on oil used on flights to the Isle of Man.

Stores and bunkers for foreign going ships

Oil may be removed from warehouse for shipment free of customs duty and excise duty as stores (e.g. deck and engine-room stores) or bunkers on entitled foreign-going ships.These include ships clearing from one British port for foreign via another British port, and also to such fishing boats as are treated as clearing for foreign and therefore entitled to duty-free stores.

Delivery documents and certificates of receipt

For oil shipped duty-free from warehouse as bunkers or other stores on foreign-goingships, warehouse-keepers are to obtain a certificate of receipt. The receipt should be given by the master, mate or chief engineer on a copy of the relevant delivery note, and retained by the warehouse-keeper for production to the officer, if necessary. Such copy is additional to any copy which may be obtained and disposed of by the warehousekeeper e.g.to the customer’s head office.

If it is impractical to obtain certificates signed by any of the specified ship’s officers, e.g. in the case of certain trawlers and quick turn-around ships, the signature of a shore superintendent or similar responsible individual acting for the owners (or charterers) of the ship may be accepted.

Advice notes for packaged goods removed for shipment as stores, which bear agents or shed receipts may be accepted in the absence of suspicion.

Bunkering to specific order by craft

A craft, whether or not owned by the warehousekeeper, may load a quantity of heavy oil to fulfil a specific bunkering order or a series of bunkering orders. The removal by craft from the duty-suspended installation to the ship or ships requiring bunkers, even if it involves a coastwise voyage, should be treated as a duty-free removal in the course of a transaction for ship’s stores under the warehousekeeper’s responsibility and is subject to the provisions in ‘Stores and bunkers for foreign going ships’ and ‘Delivery documents and certificates of receipt’ (above).

The warehouse records are to be adopted as necessary to show clearly the quantities loaded into the craft and a comparison made with the quantities shipped on ships requiring bunkers, and any significant remnants.