Iran will find it easier to export oil after Japan's parliament, as expected, passes a bill today to provide government guarantees on insurance for tankers carrying Iranian crude.
Under a European Union ban on member countries importing Iranian oil, which takes effect July 1, there is a ban on EU insurance firms covering Iran's exports.
Globally, shipping third-party liabilities for oil pollution, wreck removal and damage to port property are insured with the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs, a 13-member group based in London that provides cover for 95 per cent of the world's ocean-going ships by capacity.
Under the EU sanctions the IG Clubs will no longer be able to provide this cover to ships hauling Iranian oil from 1 July.
EU and US sanctions aim to cut the oil revenues on which Iran depends to fund its nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran aims to develop atomic weapons, while Tehran says its intentions are peaceful.
The Japanese government wants to make the bill law this month to provide protection cover of up to US$7.6 billion (Dh27.9bn) per tanker carrying Iranian crude bound for Japan.
Iranian oil accounted for nearly 9 per cent of Japan's crude imports last year.
Japan has reduced the flow already to comply with US sanctions requiring buyers to make sizeable cuts to Iranian imports, but wants to avoid more drastic reductions that may drive up energy import costs and hurt the world's third-largest economy. Sources within the global insurance markets believe other Asian countries will soon follow. Japan, South Korea, China and India, together buy two thirds of Iran's oil exports.
India, the world's fourth-biggest oil importer yesterday voiced its insurance concerns at the Opec meeting in Vienna yesterday.
"We are struggling to find solutions," the Indian oil minister S Jaipal Reddy said, adding the issuing of Indian government sovereign guarantees was "in the process of examination".
South Korea will reduce imports to zero next month due to the insurance ban. Seoul, like Tokyo, has lobbied the EU to cancel or delay implementing the ban on insurers but is not considering state guarantees, Reuters reported.
Iran's top buyer, China, has yet to detail how it plans to resolve the insurance problem but the Iranian news agency Fars has reported the managing director of Iran's Kish Bilateral Insurance Institute, Mohammad Banayi, claiming a giant Chinese oil tanker company had requested his institute to give insurance coverage to its tankers.
"The Chinese company asked for our institute's assistance to receive insurance services for [its] oil tankers," Mr Banayi told Fars. "But at present our institute is not allowed to make an insurance commitment to foreign ships."
Meanwhile, the EU stressed it had no intention of halting or delaying the implementation of shipping insurance-related sanctions against Iran, and could cope with any extra loss of Iranian crude exports stemming from the measures, the EU energy commissioner Günther Oettinger said yesterday.
The support of the key suppliers Russia and Saudi Arabia, in addition to oil inventories held within Europe, means regional oil markets could cope with any loss of Iranian crude even if, as some analysts predict, the shipping sanctions make the impact of overall sanctions much larger than originally intended, he said.
"An oil ban, and to cut relations between financial institutions, is the best, pragmatic approach to give some pressure to Tehran," said Mr Oettinger.
"We have a huge storage capacity and we can lift it whenever we have to. We are sure we can organise a functioning level of security of supply in the next months and years to cope with any effects of sanctions on Iranian oil supply."
The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday Iran's crude exports fell by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from the end of last year to 1.5 million bpd and that Tehran may need to shut in production.
China, Japan, India and South Korea have cut purchases by about a fifth from the 1.45 million bpd they were buying a year ago ahead of the imposition of the sanctions.
dblack@thenational.ae
Things Heard & Seen
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton
2/5
MATCH INFO
Juventus 1 (Dybala 45')
Lazio 3 (Alberto 16', Lulic 73', Cataldi 90 4')
Red card: Rodrigo Bentancur (Juventus)
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Nancy 9 (Hassa Beek)
Nancy Ajram
(In2Musica)
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Austria 2
Hinteregger (53'), Schopf (69')
Germany 1
Ozil (11')
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
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Match info
Premier League
Manchester United 2 (Martial 30', Lingard 69')
Arsenal 2 (Mustafi 26', Rojo 68' OG)
The Cockroach
(Vintage)
Ian McEwan
Tomb%20Raider%20I%E2%80%93III%20Remastered
%3Cp%3EDeveloper%3A%20Aspyr%0D%3Cbr%3EPublisher%3A%20Aspyr%0D%3Cbr%3EConsole%3A%20Nintendo%20Switch%2C%20PlayStation%204%26amp%3B5%2C%20PC%20and%20Xbox%20series%20X%2FS%0D%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
