Status: 03/10/2023 10:53 a.m
The tanker “Safer” full of crude oil has been rotting away off the coast of Yemen for years. To prevent an environmental catastrophe, the United Nations bought a tanker. Oil pumping could begin in May.
To save the Red Sea and its coasts, the United Nations has bought a ship to pump out the run-down oil tanker “Safer”. The “Floating Storage and Offloading Terminal” (FSO) loaded about 175 million liters of crude oil. In the event of a leak, the oil could cover hundreds of kilometers in the sea with a black silt.
The storage ship “FSO Safer” has been rotting away near the Yemeni port of Hodeidah since the 1980s.
Image: ARD current
Rescue mission to start in April
Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), said his organization had signed a purchase agreement with the company Euronav for a tanker that could hold more than 150 million liters of oil.
Steiner spoke of a “major breakthrough” in the efforts to prevent an environmental catastrophe caused by the “Safer”. For a long time, the UN has been campaigning for government donations to be able to buy a ship. The UN tanker is scheduled to depart for Yemen in April after undergoing routine maintenance in China. The pumping of the oil could then begin at the beginning of May, according to the UNDP chief.
UN: No maintenance since the outbreak of war
The “Safer” is used by the Yemeni Houthi rebels as an oil storage facility. The approximately 45-year-old ship has not been serviced since the outbreak of war in Yemen.
According to the UN, the ramshackle storage ship has four times as much oil on board as the Exxon Valdez, which crashed off Alaska in 1989 and caused an oil spill. The “Exxon Valdez” accident is considered one of the largest environmental disasters in shipping.
An oil spill could cause estimated costs of the equivalent of 19 billion euros. In addition to the consequences for the environment and fisheries, maritime trade would also be severely affected.