London (Platts)--28Feb2011/1144 am EST/1644 GMT

There has been no change to shipping insurance premiums for vessels berthing at Libya despite the escalating tension within the country, according to marine insurers Lloyds in London Monday.

"Libya has not been a maritime high level risk," said an underwriter, adding that despite the unrest on the streets, security around operations at the ports has remained in place.

Last week, a senior executive underwriter at Lloyd's Market Association downplayed suggestions of rising insurance premiums, and said there had been no increase of premiums regardless of the upheaval in the country.

"Of course, if a new shipment starts heading there, we would have to look again...but there has been no reaction at the moment," said the underwriter.

"Libya is not on our list of areas of major risk, so at the moment it is not seen as a major risk to hull insurers," he added.

Costs are sometimes shared, sometimes borne entirely by the ship owners, according to shipping brokers.

Meanwhile, Libyan crude loadings are continuing where possible, despite many ports being closed due to bad weather, a ship owner said.

"We have an Aframax tanker, the St Nicholas, and she was due to berth at Mersa El Brega late on February 25, but she has still not berthed due to bad weather," said one ship owner.

"We hope she will berth sometime this afternoon," he said, adding high sea swell was making berthing vessels difficult.

Bad weather first started to affect operations at key Libyan ports last Thursday when many ports, including Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Brega and Zawia were reported closed.

Two Aframax tankers have successfully berthed and loaded at Es Sider and Ras Lanuf last week, the ship owner said.

--Rob Sheridan, robert_sheridan@platts.com

Similar stories appear in Oilgram News. See more information at http://bit.ly/OilgramNews