The UN-led project to prevent a massive oil spill from the Safer supertanker off Yemen’s Red Sea coast began Tuesday with the removal of more than 1 million barrels of oil from the decaying vessel.
The Safer has been at risk of breaking up or exploding for years. A major spill from the vessel would result in an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe, said the UN Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) in Benelux in a press release today.
The oil aboard the Safer is being pumped into the replacement vessel in a ship-to-ship transfer that is expected to take 19 days to complete.
After its arrival at the site on May 30, the leading marine Dutch salvage company SMIT, has stabilized the 47-year-old Safer, which is moored about 9 kms off the Red Sea coast of Yemen and 50 kms of the port of Hodeida.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which contracted SMIT, is implementing the operation to remove the oil.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “In the absence of anyone else willing or able to perform this task, the United Nations stepped up and assumed the risk to conduct this very delicate operation. The ship-to-ship transfer of oil which has started today is the critical next step in avoiding an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe on a colossal scale”.
Source: Kuwait News Agency
