An abandoned oil tanker lying off Yemen’s coast with 1.1 million barrels of crude oil on board is deteriorating badly and could rupture at any time, with potential disastrous results for Red Sea marine life, UN and other experts warn.
The 45-year-old FSO Safer is anchored off the port of Hodeida under the control of the Iran-backed Houthi militants who have blocked UN efforts to send a team of experts to assess its condition.
Effectively a floating storage platform, it has had virtually no maintenance for five years since war broke out in which the Houthis have seized much of the country’s northwest from the internationally recognized government.
The UN Security Council is to hold a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, after water entered the vessel’s engine room “which could have led to disaster,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday, adding that if an inspection team was allowed on board, it would conduct light repairs and determine the next steps.
“We hope logistical arrangements will be quickly completed so this work can begin,” Dujarric said.
The Yemeni government, which appealed for the UN to take up the issue, has warned the ship could explode and cause “the largest environmental disaster regionally and globally.”
Houthi leader Mohamed Ali al-Houthi said on Twitter last month that the militants want guarantees that the vessel would be repaired and the value of the oil on board could be used for their benefit.
The Houthis have now agreed to provide the UN tions access to the tanker, two UN sources familiar with the matter said yesterday.
They said the Houthis sent a letter approving the deployment of a UN technical team to the tanker.
The market value of the oil is now estimated at US$40 million, half what it was before crude prices crashed, although experts say poor quality could push it even lower.
Like other economic and aid issues in Yemen, the plight of the tanker has become a bargaining chip, with the Houthis accused of using the threat of disaster to secure control of the value of the cargo.
Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed on Thursday called on the international community to punish the Houthis for preventing a UN inspection and said the value of the oil should be spent on health and humanitarian projects.
Apart from corrosion to the aging vessel, essential work on reducing explosive gases in the storage tanks has been neglected for years. Experts said the latest problem emerged in May with a leak in a cooling pipe.
“The pipe burst, sending water into the engine room and creating a really dangerous situation,” said Ian Ralby, chief executive official of IR Consilium, a global maritime consultancy which follows the vessel closely. A team from Safer Exploration and Production Operations, a Yemeni public oil company partly controlled by the Houthis, sent divers in to fix the leak, narrowly avoiding the ship sinking, Ralby said.
If the vessel ruptures “you’re going to have two catastrophes,” UN Resident Coordinator for Yemen Lise Grande said.
“There’s going to be an environmental catastrophe that’s bigger than almost any other similar kind... and it’s going to be a humanitarian catastrophe because that oil will make the port of Hodeida unusable,” Grande said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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