Insurance experts are braced for a clean-up and compensation bill in excess of $500m from the grounding of a capesize bulker off Mauritius.

The Japan P&I Club, which insures the 203,000-dwt Wakashio (built 2007), backed by the Japanese government, is expected to pay out all of the oil pollution clean-up costs in the first instance.

But almost all of the bill for the disaster will eventually fall on the International Group of P&I Clubs' pooled claims system.