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Ahram Online
The United Nations called on Wednesday for a $144 Million urgent funding which is required to salvage a decaying tanker full of oil moored off the coast of Yemen. The ship’s demise could cause an environmental disaster.
“The amount includes $80 Million to transfer the more than 1 million barrels of crude oil to storage onboard the FSO Safer”, said David Gressly, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.
The pledging conference, co-hosted by the UN and the Netherlands, comes over two months after the UN and Yemen’s Houthi rebels reached an agreement to transfer the tanker’s contents to another vessel.
The Iranian-backed Houthis control Yemen’s western Red Sea ports including Ras Issa port, 6 kilometres from which the FSO Safer has been moored.
“The vessel is slowly rusting and going into significant decay and could explode, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life, desalination facilities and international shipping routes”, Gressly said.
“Every day that passes, every month that passes and every year that passes increases the chances of the vessel breaking up and spilling its contents. The UN estimates $20 Billion would be needed to clean up the oil spill”, he warned in a news briefing earlier this week.
The Japanese-built tanker was sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of export oil pumped from fields of the Marib province which is currently a battleground. The ship is 360 metres (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks.
Since 2015, annual maintenance on the ship was halted. Most crew members, except for 10 people, were pulled off the vessel after the Saudi-led coalition joined the war in Yemen civil.
