KARACHI, Aug 18: Six Pakistan-based insurance companies are likely to suffer a loss of about Rs40 million and Rs45 million on account of the oil spill from the Greek-registered tanker Tasman Spirit but international insurers will have to pick up 90 per cent of the cumulative loss, amounting to between Rs350 million and Rs400 million.

Pressure is expected to mount on Karachi Port Trust (KPT) next week when oil recovery operations are over and the ship will have to be dismantled before being towed ashore in bits and pieces.

“International surveyors will demand (an exact) measurement of silting levels in the port’s sea access channel,” an insurance operator, dealing in marine business and having knowledge of hull insurance, told Dawn on Monday.

International surveyors may blame high silting level of the sea access channel for the mishap and may try to pass on the responsibility to KPT authorities.

“Agreed that Tasman Spirit is 24 years old and is a single- hull ship but the Greek contractor Tsavliris Russ and his international insurers and reinsurers have a very high stake and will ... (try to) pass on the responsibility to others for this mishap,” he said.

The insurance executive said international insurance surveyors may ask the KPT authorities to inform them when the last dredging was carried out at the port and how was it monitored. “Is there any system to monitor silting at Karachi port,” he said.

The Pakistan National Shipping Corporation is now being blamed for chartering a single-hull oil tanker. The KPT is being charge-sheeted for allowing this ship to enter the berth. Sources say that the captain of one of the two tugs that towed ship from the outer anchorage to the channel had warned about the impending mishap. It had gone unheeded.

But the six Pakistan-based insurance companies that had booked a marine insurance of the crude oil worth about Rs800 million are relatively better placed as 90 per cent of their business passed on to reputed international reinsurers in Japan, Switzerland and Germany.

The six companies and their respective share in the marine insurance of the oil loaded on Tasman Spirit are Central Insurance (23.5 per cent), Eastern Federal Union (21.5pc), Adamjee (20.9pc), New Jubilee Insurance (17.6pc), Habib Insurance (11.5pc) and New Hampshire (five per cent).

A rough estimate shows that about 18,000 tonnes and 20,000 tonnes of oil — worth about Rs240 million — has already leaked out of the ship and the remaining quantity is expected to be retrieved. Insurance sources are confident to recover 45,000 tonnes of oil from the ship by next week.

Insurance sources calculated the cost of the oil spill based on the commodity’s price at about Rs12,000 a tonne. Of this loss, the six Pakistani insurance companies will bear 10 per cent or about Rs22.4 million. The international reinsurers will pick up more than Rs200 million loss.

The recovery of the remaining 45,000 tonnes of oil will be done at 40 per cent of the oil price. Roughly Rs220 million will also be shared in same ratio with 90 per cent of the price tag to be picked up by international reinsurers and 10 per cent by the Pakistani companies.

Pakistan refinery, the importer of the light crude oil from Iran, had paid a heavy premium amounting to Rs2.7 million for the cargo on the oil tanker. Normal premium rate, insurance sources say, are Rs700,000 for the same quantity of oil if it is loaded on a ship that is less than 15 year old.

Though bearable, but more than Rs40 million loss in a single insurance undertaking is being considered as the highest marine loss so far in Pakistan.