SANAA, Jul 26 (NNN-SABA) – The UN emergency team began yesterday, a risky operation to transfer crude oil from the decaying tanker, abandoned off Yemen’s western coast, it was reported.
The UN team has started to offload more than one million barrels of crude oil from Safer, a floating storage and offloading facility (FSO) anchored in the Red Sea near the coast of the Hodeidah Province, the state TV said, citing official sources.
The operation is estimated to last around two weeks.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said in a video message yesterday that, “the UN team has begun a complex operation to transfer (more than) one million barrels of oil from a decaying tanker off the coast of Yemen.”
“We need to keep working to defuse what remains a ticking time bomb and avoid what would be by far the worst oil spill of our era,” the UN chief added.
David Gressly, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said earlier this month that, after the ship-to-ship transfer of the oil, the replacement vessel, officially renamed Yemen, will be attached to a catenary anchor leg mooring buoy, which will be firmly anchored to the seabed.
On Saturday, the UN team managed to safely berth the Yemen tanker alongside the deteriorating FSO Safer, days after completing safety measures, including running a generator to spread thwarting gas inside Safer, to emit any possible explosion.
The Safer, originally constructed as a supertanker in 1976, and later converted to an FSO for oil, is currently moored approximately 4.8 nautical miles off the coast near Hodeidah.
It is now under the control of the Houthis. However, the internationally recognised government of Yemen also asserts ownership of the tanker and its crude oil. The disputes between the two sides have disrupted the regular maintenance of the tanker, resulting in its decay over the years.
The UN warned that a spill from the FSO Safer could have a devastating impact on the Red Sea and the coastline of Yemen. The spill could release four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which killed thousands of seabirds and marine mammals and caused widespread environmental damage.
It would also lead to the closure of the essential ports of Hodeidah and Saleef, which are crucial for bringing food, fuel, and life-saving supplies into Yemen, where 17 million people need assistance.
Earlier this month, the UN said, it had raised about 118 million U.S. dollars out of the estimated 148-million-dollar budget for the emergency rescue project for Safer.– NNN-SABA
