The United Nations confirmed Tuesday that they have initiated the process of offloading more than one million barrels of crude oil from the decaying tanker “FSO Safer”, days after Yemen’s Foreign Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak announced the arrival of the replacement vessel, “Nautica”, at the port of Hodeidah.
On Tuesday, the organization announced that it had begun transferring one million barrels of oil from the rusty giant oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, in an effort to avoid a disastrous spill. The operation could take up to 19 days.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated in a report that complex maritime rescue efforts are now underway in the Red Sea off the Yemeni coast to transfer one million barrels of oil from the decaying FSO Safer to a replacement vessel.
He added that the oil would be transferred from the Safer tanker to a replacement vessel in a process that might take 19 days. The operation aims to remove over one million barrels of oil from the giant tanker off the coast of Yemen on the Red Sea.
Last month, the United Nations Development Program announced that it had secured insurance coverage for the emptying operation of the Safer tank. The total cost of the operation is estimated to be about $142 million.
The “Safer”, built 47 years ago and used as a floating storage platform, is loaded with about 1.1 million barrels of crude oil. The ship has not undergone any maintenance since 2015, leading to the deterioration and corrosion of its structure.
SMIT Salvage Company will pump the oil from Safer to the ship Nautica, which the United Nations specifically purchased for this operation, before towing the empty tanker in a process estimated to cost $148 million.
