Marsh revealed in oil pipeline project shunned by leading banks and insurers

Marsh revealed in oil pipeline project shunned by leading banks and insurers

Marsh McLennan is arranging insurance for a controversial east African oil pipeline, putting the world’s largest broker at the centre of a project that has been shunned by major banks and prompted a backlash from its own staff.

The $5bn East Africa Crude oil pipeline (Eacop), which will run from Uganda to the Tanzanian coast, is fast becoming a litmus test for how willing banks and insurers are to work on environmentally contentious projects.

The involvement of Marsh, revealed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the FT, is a boost for the planned pipeline, being developed by France’s TotalEnergies and Chinese state oil group Cnooc.

The project will cross multiple nature reserves and the basin of Lake Victoria, displacing households in Uganda and Tanzania across the stretch of the 1450km pipeline. It will turn Uganda into an oil producer for the first time.

New York-based Marsh is backing the project even as an increasing number of banks and insurers are distancing themselves from it. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley have all ruled out any financing role, according to people familiar the matter.

Beazley, the Lloyd’s of London specialist insurer, is also unwilling to provide any cover. The banks and Beazley declined