U.N.-Led Team Completes Risky Operation to Transfer Oil From Decaying Tanker

A team of international experts led by the United Nations finished a risky operation to siphon more than a million barrels of oil from a rusting tanker moored off Yemen’s Red Sea coast, where for years it threatened to explode or spill and cause an ecological and humanitarian disaster.

Two weeks after salvage workers launched the operation to transfer the oil from the 47-year-old FSO Safer, which had been left stranded 5 miles off the northern Yemeni shore since it was abandoned during the country’s bloody, eight-year civil war, the U.N. said Friday that the transfer was complete.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the transfer of the oil avoided “what could have been a monumental environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.”

The tanker’s corroding state has since 2019 alarmed international organizations and experts who feared a massive spill of oil into the region’s fragile ecosystem that could cost $20 billion to clean up, according to the U.N. The oil, if disgorged, would have amounted to the fifth-largest oil spill from a tanker in history, disturbed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and closed off ports bringing humanitarian aid into the war-torn country.

The operation had been delayed for years, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels rebuffed requests from international organizations to access the tanker. With the mediation of a Yemen-based company, the Fahem Group, which imports grain through the nearby Hodeidah port, and which convinced the rebels that a spill would also damage their economic and political interests, a deal was struck last year to solve the issue.

The entire endeavor has taken more than two months. In late May, a 65-person crew from a Dutch salvage company, SMIT, arrived at the site to assess the condition of the vessel. They checked the rusty hull, replaced faulty parts and pumped inert gas into the tanks to lower the risk of explosion.

After the assessment, a very large crude carrier purchased by the U.N. lined up alongside the Safer, where the tanks of the two vessels were connected with pipes before the oil was transferred using hydraulic pumps. The transfer began on July 25 and was completed two weeks later, at 6 p.m. local time Friday.

The salvage vessel containing the oil will now be taken to a nearby location and secured to a specially strengthened buoy anchored to the seabed with thick cables within an estimated 10 days.

The FSO Safer will eventually be towed to a nearby port, the location of which hasn’t been decided, where it will be cleaned of sludge, constituting approximately 2% of the total amount of oil, or the equivalent of roughly 22,000 barrels of oil.

While it brings immediate relief, the completion of the transfer also opens a new set of disputes. The FSO Safer and its contents belong to the Yemeni government, but both the toppled administration, now based in Aden, and the Houthis who occupy the capital San’a claim to be Yemen’s legitimate rulers.

No agreement has been made about the fate of the oil. If sold, the parties will have to agree on what happens to the profits. If it is to be stored in the new replacement vessel, money will have to be raised for the operation of the tanker.

The U.N. still lacks funding to complete the rest of the mission. The U.N.’s plan is to clean the FSO Safer of sludge and scrap it at a green salvage yard, using the profits to bridge the gap in funding, Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme told reporters Friday.

Yet that won’t be enough to make up for the shortfall in funding, Steiner said, calling on commercial actors to help out.

“Let me also say this very frankly here,” he said. “I think there are many in the industry that may still seize this moment to step forward where they have not stepped forward so far and help to close this financing gap.”

Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]