A UK-incorporated marine insurer, which claims it has the backing of the "Central Government" has emerged as the provider of protection and indemnity insurance to three Iran-trading, San Marino-flagged tankers that were sanctioned by the US government last Friday.

The Pacific Maritime Club Limited provided the Blue Cards for three elderly, very large crude carriers Dimitra II (IMO: 9208215), Salvia (IMO: 9297319) and Wen Yao (IMO: 9288095), according to the San Marino registry. The tankers have an average age of 21 years. San Marino said it had immediately cancelled the ships.

Blue Cards are international certificates issued by a marine insurer verifying P&I insurance is in place, and that the marine insurer is liable for costs relating to pollution and oil spills, collisions and crew injuries.

The company’s chairman, director and holder of 100% of shares was 55-year-old Iran-born Behzad Roshani, who resided in Türkiye, according to UK Companies House filings.

Roshani first incorporated the company in September 2020 but never filed anything, with the company struck off in February 2022, Companies House documents show. He then incorporated another company of the same name on July 2022.

“The Club is fully reinsured by Central Insurance, which is a state run organisation fully supported by the Government,” according to its website, which was provided by the San Marino registry for the club.

The blurb appears to have been copied and pasted from the website for Qita MC P&I Club, which stood for the Institute of Qeshm International Trust Alliance Mutual Club, that has a contact number with a Türkiye prefix. That number could not be reached.

The Pacific Maritime Club is noted as an approved P&I provider by several registries, according to investigations by Lloyd’s List, including Palau, Comoros, Togo, Panama, Barbados and Guinea-Bissau. It does not show as an approved provider for St Kitts and Nevis or Liberia.

Neither is the marine insurer among the 12 clubs in the International Group of P&I clubs that cover 86% of the internationally trading global fleet.

The emergence of fixed premium providers like the Pacific Marine Club is now a widespread safety and environmental concern for coastal states in busy maritime chokepoints through which elderly tankers carrying sanctioned oil sail.

Whether they could meet any liabilities in the event of an accident or spill is uncertain and recently raised by governments in the UK and US as something marine service providers need to be more aware.

The three sanctioned VLCCs insured by The Pacific Maritime Club were among 22 tankers and one liquefied petroleum carrier designated by the US Treasury department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control for shipping Iranian crude or LPG, on October 11.

The website for the club provides at address at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden in London, an address for Quality Company Formations, which provides business incorporation services and addresses. This is the same address provided to Companies House. The UK mobile phone number on the website was not working when Lloyd's List called it three times on October 15.

All tankers insured by The Pacific Maritime Club were part of the 668 tankers of the so-called dark fleet* shipping Western-sanctioned Russian oil or US-sanctioned Iranian or Venezuelan oil.

Alongside these sanctioned San Marino-flagged vessels were tankers flagged with Panama, Malaysia, Barbados, Belize, Cameroon, Eswatini, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and St Kitts and Nevis according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.

One of the other sanctioned tankers, Belize-flagged product tanker Anhona (IMO: 9354521) was insured by Norway’s Ro Marine. The company, based in Oslo and with offices at the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association building, according to its website, said it cancels cover for all sanctioned ships.

A number of fixed premium providers identified by Lloyd’s List are providing Blue Cards for dark fleet shipping which liability is uncertain. East of England P&I Association, whose website domain was tracked to a GoDaddy website in Bulgaria, removed claims on its website that it had backing of Lloyd’s of London.

Others including Maritime Mutual Insurance Association (NZ), which is backed by Lloyd’s, have issued Blue Cards for tankers engaged in Iranian trades. Maritime Mutual issued the Blue Card for Ceres 1 (IMO: 9444807), which has been solely engaged in shipping Iranian oil for at least three years, and was involved in a casualty with Hafnia Nile (IMO: 9766217) in July.

Maritime Mutual has declined emailed and phone requests to supply a street address for its office in London via its subsidiary Maritime Pacific Insurance Services Ltd. The company does not have an office at address provided, 8 Bishopsgate, in the City of London, and said its is based in Chelmsford, Essex.

* 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