India’s top tanker companies have rejected its own government’s offer.
The latest insurance news regarding Iranian oil has shown that the top ship owners in India have rejected an offer from their government to provide coverage for shipping crude from the Iran, saying that the protection being offered is inadequate.
The tanker coverage was offered in an attempt to skirt the European Union’s sanctions.
The refusal of these ship owners has meant that the refiners in India will need to use the coverage being offered from Tehran, as well as Iranian tankers in order to import the oil from that country. This will make India the second largest importer of crude from that nation, after China.
This is the latest insurance news regarding the scramble of Asian nations to find a way around E.U. bans.
The European Union cut off coverage at the start of July, banning both insurers and reinsurers among its countries from selling policies for ships carrying crude from Iran to anywhere else in the world. As about 90 percent of the coverage for those tankers had been from European nations, India was forced to come up with its own coverage if it wished to continue importing Iranian oil.
However, the most recent insurance news has shown that Indian tanker owner have found that there are simply too many issues with the policy that was drawn up by the government of that country. As long as the problems remain, they have no intention of trying to use it.
The policy offered by the government of India through its state-run insurers included a coverage of $50 million per trip against personal injury and pollution claims, as well as for machinery and hull damage to the ships. When compared to the $1 billion in coverage offered by Iran in its latest insurance news release, for its supertankers which can carry approximately two million barrels.
Among the primary issues seen in the policy offered by the Indian government, other than the size of the coverage, is the fact that it is providing coverage per voyage, as opposed to per incident. The Iranian coverage, according to current insurance news, is providing a cover per incident.
