What happens if original bill of lading lost?

If an importer lost BL, just check with shipper how many negotiable and non-negotiable BL shipper or exporter has with him, they may have additional. You can ask them to send it to you if extra is available. But if shipment is already reached destination you may have to pay demurrage or detention charges while keeping goods at destination port warehouse. Shipper can request Shipping line/Forwarder to re-issue BL or in case of urgency he may ask shipping line/ forwarder to surrender it with Imporeter at destination, which I think is possiblle with certain formalities. 

It could be first incident for an imporoter or exporter but shiping line or forwarder must have faced similar situation many times, So the first step is to have a talk with them and ask their advice......Some procedures can be vary depending on countries exim rules & regulations. 

Shipping lines are very strict in these cases, and they will request a bank guarantee from class A bank covering at least 100% of the cargo value and valid for at least one year.

No issue .... on photo copy bill of lading endorsed by drawee bank and make shipping guarantee issue to applicant for goods realising Later on original b/l obtained from shipper . in my view this is a solution.

agreed reply of Mr. fazalu rehman same procedure to be followed and now a days we have digital copies so it is not much problematic, but we have to face some time duration and extra charges to be bared by us. 

the reciever of b/l must take the legale procedure with police station and agency office and must advertise in legal news paper for this case after take the aprovel to creat sea way bill insted of the lost OB/L they must against bank grantee letter adding to the documents to recieve the DO but in this case not alowed to print OB/L any more but the line creat telex release or Sea Way Bill draft.

you notify police and go with police report to the shipping line and sign an obligation that you didn't use the first one and they will give you another copy

Normally the chance of loosing the original bill of lading is less because you will have a couple of copies depends on your agreement with the shipper. in worst scenario , if you lost your bill of lading, you have to inform your shipper to inform their shipping line to issue another bill of lading original copy which they will charge you or your shipper. if in case your shipment has already reached your port and are about to face demurrage or storage charges or if you have urgency to clear the shipment, you have to inform them to surrender the bill of lading which is called express ill and it is possible to issue the delivery order from their agent here in the port of destination. for that after submitting the bill shipping line will send a message to their agent to release the delivery order. only thing you have to do is to issue a formal letter stating that the bill of lading is already surrendered at the origin port.

All answers are wrong.