(UN) Transferring huge cargo of oil from dilapidated supertanker off Yemen carries ‘obvious risks’, but waiting for an ‘inevitable’ oil spill, doing nothing, was ‘not an option’ , a senior UN official insisted on Wednesday.
THE FSO Safer, 47-year-old ship, converted into a floating storage and offloading terminal, is anchored off the strategic port of Hodeidah, without having been maintained since 2015, when Yemen is plunged into one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world due to of the war between power and the Houthi rebels.
The first images sent this week by the crew of the technical support vessel Ndeavor, of the Boskalis company and whose subsidiary SMIT Salvage will carry out the operations, showed “an old rusty tanker”, commented to AFP Achim Steiner , boss of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to maneuver in this file.
The tour of the boat and the first visual of the experts on board Wednesday “did not reveal anything that we did not expect”, he explains. But it will take several days for a real evaluation.
In any case, the planned transfer of the equivalent of more than one million barrels of oil from the Safer to the Nautica, a supertanker bought by the UNDP which is waiting in Djibouti, will not be easy.
“worst case scenario”
PHOTO REUTERS
THE FSO Saferwhich could break, explode or catch fire at any time
“The risks of something going wrong are real, they are obvious. And if something goes wrong, a lot of questions will be asked,” acknowledges Achim Steiner.
“Questions that can be answered: turning your back was not an option”.
Because “the worst-case scenario”, the threat that the Safer breaks, explodes or catches fire, “was increasingly seen as an unavoidable risk”, he insists.
However, according to the UN, it contains four times the quantity of oil from the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker which in 1989 caused one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of the United States.
In the event of an oil spill in the Red Sea linked to the Saferthe United Nations estimates the cost of cleanup alone at $20 billion.
So “the United Nations took the decision to volunteer, because the alternative would have been simply to do nothing and wait for the accident”, launches the boss of the UNDP, assuring that everything is done to “reduce the risks”.
First, securing the Safer whose systems are no longer operational. Thus, in the coming days, “inert gases” will be injected into the tanks to “reduce the risk of explosion or fire”.
If the worst should happen, the UNDP and the International Maritime Organization have planned a “contingency plan that goes far beyond the site of the Safer », Including the hypothesis of an oil spill reaching coasts where cleanup would be complicated by the presence of mines.
“Tens of millions of dollars”
A “huge complexity” which involved lawyers, experts, insurance consortium, not to mention the agreement of the parties to the conflict in Yemen. Risks that have also discouraged some potential donors: there is still a shortfall of $29 million for this operation of more than $140 million.
Even when the pumping of oil to the Nautica is finished – “if all goes as planned” by early or mid-July – the UN official will not be completely relieved.
Pumping concerns liquid crude only. However, over the years, “a kind of mud” of oil has been created at the bottom of the reservoirs, mud that SMIT experts will have to remove, he explains.
The rescue will not be complete until the Safer will be towed to a scrap yard.
Until then, the quality of the oil will be assessed.
If it has not been contaminated by seawater or other substances, it could represent “several tens of millions of dollars”, estimates Achim Steiner. “Revenue that could be used to help the desperate people of Yemen, who are struggling to survive.”
But the UN focused in its negotiations on the rescue operation, not on the destination of possible revenues.
The UN coordinator in Yemen David Gressly “will continue to discuss” with the two parties to the conflict, “hoping to reach a conclusion that everyone can adhere to”.