Insurers can offer cover to Indian refineries for Iran crude import: Irda

Now Indian refineries can ship oil from Iran with appropriate insurance cover

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) has enabled Indian insurers and reinsurers to help cover Iran crude oil import by Indian refineries.

Irda chairman J Hari Narayan said that therefore, Indian refineries can ship oil from Iran with appropriate insurance cover.

"They (insurers) have approaches us and we have enabled them to do that," he said.

India's sole reinsurer General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), had earlier said that it they have submitted a paper to the General Insurance Council calling for some clarity related to refineries importing Iranian crude.

In a recent letter to R Chandrasekharan, Secretary General of the General Insurance Council, Roy had said, "We had recently received a request from Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) for a cover for their SPM on discharge of Iranian Crude. Consequently, a meeting was arranged in our office of officers from the four public sector undertakings and the cover discussed. During the deliberations it emerged that apparently the Refinery processing Iranian crude would also be out of the ambit of any cover and losses would not be payable by the reinsures on the protection programme of the companies."

He had added in the letter that it also dawned on the insurers that this fact had not been made clear to them that they were uncovered whilst processing Iranian crude owing to the sanctions clause. "It is therefore felt that the General Insurance Council should organize for a discussion of the insurers to identify the issues involved and attempt to find out possible solutions," he said further.