vessels that total over 15 million gross registered tons.

Stockton Re is the backer for First Line, the programme that provides cover under the US Oil Pollution Act.

Director and vice president of Stockton Re, Mr. Richard Black, described the programme as an unqualified success.

He said, "The flow of applications continues at a steady pace, including many substantial fleets and several requests for guaranties to replace self-insurance.

"Without doubt, First Line has become the largest open market programme of its kind, more than twice the size of its nearest competitor.'' Mr. Black attributed First Line's success to "the distinct attraction of a non-mutualised, non-assessable, fixed cost guaranty, issued by an insurer with substantial equity of its own backed by an unlimited and unaggregated traditional reinsurance programme, with no risk of additional calls at any time. No other programme has these qualities.'' Stockton Re has about $250 million of shareholder's equity. The major reinsurers are ACE and XL, both publicly traded companies with combined assets of more than $6 billion and combined shareholders' equity of more than $3 billion, and the Lloyd's market led by Richard Youell of the Janson Green syndicate. Each of these is a participant on P&I Club reinsurances.

Representatives of First Line, including Stockton Re and its reinsurers, will be in London Monday to meet ship owners who have yet to agree to a programme.