Iran to Provide Insurance Cover for All Foreign Oil Tankers

A senior Iranian legislator on Sunday voiced Iran’s preparedness to provide insurance cover for all foreign ships and oil tankers, in a move to push back the US-engineered EU embargos against Tehran.

“The foreign oil tankers can also receive insurance cover from the Iranian companies,” member of the parliament’s Economic Commission Seyed Mohammad Hossein Mir-Mohammadi told FNA on Sunday.

He reiterated that Iranian insurance companies are now capable of presenting their services at the international level and can provide insurance cover for foreign vessels.

Mir-Mohammadi also said that the western ban on insuring vessels carrying Iranian crude cargos have inflicted heavy losses on the western insurance companies and instead the Iranian insurance companies have made huge progresses and are now able to present their services at the international level.

European Union sanctions against Tehran have stopped European insurers, who dominate the marine insurance sector, from offering cover on Iranian crude.

But the lack of shipping cover has failed to disrupt the flow of Iranian oil to Iran’s major customers in Asia – China, India, South Korea and Japan.

Earlier this month, industry sources said Japanese insurers were expanding their maritime coverage to allow more domestic tankers to transport Iranian crude and that Iranian shipments to China were flowing despite the dispute about terms.

At least 4 million barrels of Iranian oil from the July program are on their way to Chinese refiners, said a Chinese crude trader familiar with the negotiations.

China plans to buy about 15 million barrels of Iranian oil in July, sources said.

In Japan, insurers have increased their cargo and hull cover for tankers carrying Iranian crude to 39 billion yen ($491 million), up 30 percent from an initial plan unveiled in April, said industry sources.

That would allow two supertankers, instead of one, to transport Iranian oil through the Persian Gulf at one time and boost the country’s capacity to ship from Tehran to more than 200,000 barrels per day. Japan is Iran’s third-biggest oil buyer after China and India.

The expansion in hull and cargo insurance follows Tokyo’s unprecedented move last month to provide up to $7.6 billion in cover against pollution and personal injury claims, also known as protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance, for shipments.

Like Japan, India has also provided state insurance cover for ships to deliver crude. South Korea, the last of Iran’s top four Asian customers, has announced that it is mulling resumption of Iranian crude imports via Iranian tankers.