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How a decaying oil tanker became a 'massive floating bomb' risking millions of lives in Yemen

This satellite image shows the FSO Safer tanker moored off Ras Issa port, in Yemen. Houthi rebels are blocking the United Nations from inspecting the abandoned oil tanker loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil. - Maxar Technologies 
This satellite image shows the FSO Safer tanker moored off Ras Issa port, in Yemen. Houthi rebels are blocking the United Nations from inspecting the abandoned oil tanker loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil. - Maxar Technologies

Time is running out to prevent an ā€œenvironmental disaster waiting to happenā€ in the Red Sea, the UK and the UN warned this week, as a dispute over a decaying oil tanker off Yemenā€™s coast risks spilling a million barrels of crude into a fragile marine ecosystem.

Amid the accumulating horrors of Yemenā€™s grinding civil war ā€“ which has brought the country to the brink of famine and produced what the UN describes as the worldā€™s worst humanitarian disaster ā€“ warnings of impending doom are legion. But as the Security Council heard this week, this one sounded particularly dire.

ā€œThe FSO Safer oil tanker is an environmental disaster waiting to happen and unless UN experts are allowed to access it, we are facing a catastrophic environmental threat,ā€ Minister for the Middle East James Cleverly said Wednesday as the top UN body met for a special meeting on the vessel.

ā€œThe risk from the Safer is by no means strictly environmental,ā€ said the UNā€™s humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock. ā€œIt is also a direct and severe threat to the well-being ā€“ and potentially the survival ā€“ of millions of Yemenis.ā€

The tanker in question is a 44-year-old vessel bought by Yemenā€™s government in the 1980s and moored offshore 50 km northwest of Hodeidah. Until the war started, the floating storage and offloading vessel was the primary conduit for Yemenā€™s oil exports.

When Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah in 2014, the Safer came under their control and regular maintenance of the single-hulled vessel stopped.

The rebels treated the leaky ship as a bargaining chip, demanding a share from the sale of the 1.1 million barrels of oil aboard ā€“ which they currently believe to be worth $40 million ā€“ to pay public salaries.

But as Yemenā€™s war intensified, international attention focused on more pressing crises.

In 2015, a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen to prop up the government and soon reports of Saudi airstrikes killing women and children began piling up. A blockade aimed at preventing Iran sending weapons to the Houthis contributed to widespread hunger as the economy of the Arab worldā€™s poorest country collapsed further.

Cholera broke out and last October deaths reached 100,000, according to a database project that tracks the conflict. This year the UN warned that millions were at risk of starvation, while coronavirus has ripped through a weakened population.

Amid the stifling heat and humidity of the Red sea, the Safer has corroded quietly.

A skeleton crew remains on board the rusting ship but fuel to run the boilers ran out long ago, meaning inert gas has not been injected into the Saferā€™s storage tanks for years. Volatile fumes have likely accumulated, prompting one report to describe the vessel as a ā€œmassive floating bombā€.

Shiite Houthi tribesmen hold their weapons as they chant slogans during a tribal gathering showing support for the Houthi movement, in Sanaa, Yemen, last year.  - AP
Shiite Houthi tribesmen hold their weapons as they chant slogans during a tribal gathering showing support for the Houthi movement, in Sanaa, Yemen, last year. - AP

In May, seawater flooded the engine room. Divers carried out temporary repairs but a critical cooling system was damaged.

Efforts have been made to encourage the government and rebels to reach an agreement on the Safer. Mr Lowcock has alerted the Security Council to the threat of the Safer 15 times over the past 15 months.

Yemen's government and the Houthis requested UN help with the Safer in March 2018, Mr Lowcock said, but for much of that year the area around Hodeidah was too dangerous to visit due to an offensive pushed by the Saudi coalition.

On Monday, the Houthis again said they had given the green light for UN inspectors to visit the vessel. The next day the UN submitted its plan to the Houthis for a team to conduct emergency repairs and determine the next step.

But statements by the groupā€™s leader Mohammed Al-Houthi on Twitter this week suggest the rebels are still reluctant to uncouple the Safer from a wider peace deal.

Patience with the rebels may now be wearing thin. ā€œThe Houthis cannot continue to hold the environment and peopleā€™s livelihoods to ransom,ā€ Mr Cleverly said on Wednesday.

ā€œTime is running out for us to act in a coordinated manner to prevent a looming environmental, economic and humanitarian catastrophe,ā€ UN Environment Programme chief Inger Andersen said.

Urgency is needed, the FCO says, because a spill from the vessel ā€“ into one of the worldā€™s busiest shipping lanes ā€“ could be up to four times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster  in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Houthi rebels are blocking the United Nations from inspecting an abandoned oil tanker moored off the coast of Yemen loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil. - Maxar Technologies 
Houthi rebels are blocking the United Nations from inspecting an abandoned oil tanker moored off the coast of Yemen loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil. - Maxar Technologies

Red Sea ecology would need 30 years to recover from such a catastrophe, according to a report by Yemeni environmental group Holm Akhdar. Hundreds of species of fish, birds, plankton and corals would be affected, the group said, while the livelihoods of 126,000 Yemeni fishermen could be destroyed overnight.

Hodeidahā€™s ports, a lifeline for aid on which two-thirds of Yemenis depend, could be closed for up to six months, the FCO said.

The clean up could cost Ā£16 billion, it estimated.

Experts say the vessel is likely now so degraded that maintenance and repairs are no longer feasible, making salvage the best option. The priority should be to remove the oil from the tanker as soon as possible, says global maritime consultancy IR Consilium.

Meanwhile finding a buyer for the crude may be difficult and the oil may need to be sold at a heavy discount if it has deteriorated in the heat or become contaminated with seawater.

ā€œTo be honest the cost of a salvage operation will likely exceed the value of the cargo,ā€ said Ian Ralby, CEO of IR Consilium. ā€œThe UN should probably just buy the oil off the houthis and take the whole mess on their shoulders.ā€

Reaching such an agreement could yet prove problematic, while off-loading the oil could pose serious challenges of its own, says Doug Weir, research and policy director at the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory.

ā€œProviding that the Houthis allow a salvage operation to proceed, a long, complex and environmentally risky operation will lie ahead,ā€ he said.