A MARINE insurer backed by syndicates at Lloyd’s of London provided cover to tanker Ceres I (IMO: 9229439), the 23-year-old vessel shipping Iranian oil that was involved in a collision with another vessel in July.

Cyprus-based São Tomé and Principe International Ship Registry confirmed that Maritime Mutual Insurance Association (NZ) Ltd issued the Blue Card for the very large crude carrier, which regularly shipped and stored Iranian crude over the past 18 months.

Ceres I reflagged to São Tomé and Principe in April 2024 — its third flag in four years — and is one of the 640 elderly tankers that form part of the so-called dark fleet* of anonymously owned vessels solely deployed in shipping sanctioned Russian, Iranian or Venezuelan oil.

Lloyd’s of London’s involvement in underwriting risk underscores the dilemmas arising from marine contracts undertaken in “utmost good faith” as details of the Ceres I claim and how syndicates have handled it remain undisclosed.

Since July 31, Ceres I has been detained for further investigation by the Malaysia Marine Department in Tanjung Sedili waters along with Singapore-flagged Hafnia Nile (IMO: 9766217), the product tanker involved in the collision. 

Ceres I was in ballast, while Hafnia Nile was laden with 55,000 tonnes of naphtha.

A preliminary investigation found Hafnia Nile collided with the starboard side bulbous bow of Ceres I, which was anchored in international waters off eastern Malaysia on July 19 due to unspecified technical problems, the department said in a statement issued July 31.

Ceres I’s beneficial owner remains unknown. Shipping database Equasis lists its ISM manager since September as a single-ship company in Singapore, Blueshark Shipping Private Limited and registered owner and commercial operator since 2019, another brass plate company in Hong Kong, Ceres Shipping Limited.

Two days after the collision, Malaysia’s coast guard reported that its patrol boat had intercepted Ceres I with injured crew on board when the tanker switched off its Automatic Identification Signal shortly after the incident and sailed north in an attempt to leave the area.

Maritime Mutual, headquartered in New Zealand, but with executives or directors working from Liechtenstein, Guernsey, Singapore and London, declined to respond to numerous emails and phone calls requesting confirmation it issued the Blue Card for Ceres I.

The Blue Card is the international certificate verifying protection and indemnity insurance is in place and that the marine insurer is liable for costs relating to pollution and oil spills, collisions and crew injuries.

The Maritime Mutual P&I Club were “providers of member-focused and cost-effective marine insurance coverage secured by A+ rated Lloyd’s syndicates”, according to its website.

One insurance company reported by sources at Lloyd’s to be involved in the claim has not responded to emails and calls from Lloyd’s List seeking further information.

The sensitivity is underscored by Ceres I’s long history in shipping US-sanctioned Iranian and Venezuelan oil over the past three years, according to data from London-based commodities provider Vortexa, investigations by Lloyd’s List, Tankertracker.com and United Against Nuclear Iran.

Maritime Mutual said it limited liability to the first $250,000 of any claim for its members, with the remainder reinsured “through a high quality programme created by renowned London market reinsurance brokers”.

Its retained exposure and layered insurance programme was up to $1bn according to its website.

Unlike the 12 clubs that form the International Group of P&I Clubs, Maritime Mutual does not publish details about the tankers that it insures but has long provided cover to the 14% of tankers in the global fleet that operate outside group.

Lloyd’s List first reported in February 2021 that Maritime Mutual insured six tankers shipping Iranian oil.

At the time, its Liechtenstein-based director Paul Rankin said that it had contacted the members involved after learning of the vessels’ links but had not heard back from them.

“No system is flawless and is therefore vulnerable to a certain extent,” he said at the time.

That was the first and last time Maritime Mutual responded to questions from Lloyd’s List. For the past three years, Rankin has declined to answer emails or calls about cover for dark fleet tankers as and when details of Blue Cards emerged.

Last week, Maritime Mutual was also revealed as the P&I providers for four newly acquired, anonymously-owned LNG carriers deployed to ship LNG from a US-sanctioned LNG project in the Arctic.

Two of the cargoes were loaded by LNG carriers Pioneer (IMO: 9180140) and Asya Energy (IMO: 9216298) when the gas carriers were mis-declaring their location in the Barents Sea. This deceptive practice is commonly used by the dark fleet of tankers shipping Venezuelan and Iranian oil when AIS receivers are manipulated to make the vessel appear in one place when they are in another.

The Palau-flagged tankers are now under investigation by that country’s flag registry.

Sources at Lloyd’s said Maritime Mutual has rapidly expanded in the past three years alongside the growth of the dark fleet.

Despite this, the company’s presence in the City of London is limited. The Maritime Mutual website lists its London address as 8 Bishopsgate London, a 51-storey, distinctive City building that houses many insurance companies.

When Lloyd’s List visited the address, two staff members at the reception desk said that a company by the name of Maritime Mutual or Maritime Pacific Insurance Services Ltd was not based there and they had not heard of them.

A Maritime Mutual receptionist then contacted by telephone at the time said that the address on the website was a “correspondence address only” and that the physical office was based in Chelmsford. Chelmsford is a city in Essex, a county near London. She declined to provide an address.

The 8 Bishopsgate reception staff told Lloyd’s List that they were not aware of 8 Bishopsgate offering correspondence address services.

The London-based director of Maritime Pacific Insurance Services Ltd, Phillip Murrant didn’t respond to emails or calls about this or the Ceres I Blue Card. 

The UK-incorporated company of which he is a director, lists New Zealand-incorporated Crystal Holdings (New Zealand) Ltd as having an interest of 75% or more.

That entity lists Steven Joyce as one of the directors, based in Guernsey, and appointed in May 2023.  Murrant did not return calls or emails. Steven Joyce’s LinkedIn profile identifies him as the company’s group IT director.

New Zealand-incorporated Maritime Mutual Insurance Association (NZ) Ltd also lists Guernsey-based Paul Rankin as one of the six directors, alongside others based in Switzerland, South Africa, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as Russia’s Sovcomflot, or Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.

Download our explainer on the different risk profiles of the dark fleet here