Carlyle files a suit against insurers because of Samir oil refinery

Carlyle, an American multinational private-equity firm, is filing a suit against its insurer over USD 400 million loss that the group believes it lost when Morocco’s oil refinery Samir went bankrupt in 2015, Reuters reports based on court documents. 

The company accuses Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance for refusing to cover the losses. The British news agency indicates that «Carlyle Commodity Management, a subsidiary of Carlyle Group formerly called Vermillion Asset Management, said in the court filing it had about 7 million barrels of crude and oil products stored at Morocco's 200,000 barrel per day refinery in Mohammedia in 2015 prior to its stoppage». 

The Japanese insurance group declines its responsibility over Carlyle’s losses pointing out that it had not been informed back in the time about the situation of the Moroccan refinery. They also insisted that «Carlyle's dealings with Samir, the refinery's operator, mean that its losses are not covered by the type of insurance it had.»

For the record, Carlyle alongside Anglo-Swiss commodities trade company Glencore have offered earlier this month to buy the Moroccan refinery Samir after it went bankrupt two years ago. Sources close to the deal reportedly said that the offer was cancelled. Samir on the other hand which was owned by the Corral Petroleum Holdings group of Saudi billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi, was forced to stop production due to a court’s ruling after being unable to repay its debts.