Insurers Move to Correct Anomalies in Oil and Gas Underwriting

Operators in Nigera’s insurance market have expressed determination to check the continued loss of foreign exchange by way of ceding insurance businesses to foreign insurance and reinsurance companies.

To this end, the industry is taking necessary steps to build human and underwriting capacities to ensure that no oil major in the country cedes risks to their insurance subsidiaries abroad, under the guise of lack of local capacity to underwrite oil and energy risks.

This step followed the identification of infractions in the underwriting of oil and gas risks in the country that make it impossible for the insurance industry to tap fully into the Local Content in Oil and Gas policy of the Federal Government.

Iran offers insurance cover for crude oil shipments

Faced with problems of its customers not being able to import oil due to lack of adequate insurance for ships, National Iranian Oil Company has offered India and other countries the use of fully-insured Iranian vessels for crude shipments. The countries purchasing Iranian oil can ship supplies through Iranian oil tankers that have full insurance cover.

While Iran is one of the main oil suppliers for India, the recent sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe have severely affected the shipments.

 Even though India does not recognize these international sanctions, the financial sanctions have affected shipments to the country as ships carrying oil from Iran were previously insured by insurance companies from Europe.  All those international insurance companies have stopped insuring oil tankers coming from Iran.