UN begins complex oil tanker salvage operation to avoid ‘catastrophic’ spill in Red Sea | CBC News

An international team began siphoning oil out of a decrepit oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Tuesday, the United Nations chief said, a crucial step in a complex salvage operation.

In a statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the operation a mission “to defuse what might be the world’s largest ticking time bomb.”

For years, many organizations have warned that the neglected vessel, known as FSO Safer, may cause a major oil spill or even explode.

“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,” Guterres said. 

The tanker carries four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the UN.

Now, the more than 1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the tanker will be moved to another vessel the UN has purchased, Guterres said. 

WATCH | The UN’s plan to safely remove the oil from the FSO Safer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/HIAZeRIjUw8

The Safer is moored six kilometres from Yemen’s western Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Ras Issa, a strategic area now embroiled in the country’s civil war.

The vessel has not been maintained for eight years and its structural integrity is compromised, making it at risk of breaking up or exploding. Seawater has entered the engine compartment, causing damage to the pipes and increasing the risk of sinking, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press in June 2020.

International effort

For years, the UN and governments of other countries as well as environmental groups have warned that if an oil spill — or explosion — occurs, it could disrupt global commercial shipping, causing untold damage to the global economy.

In total, the Safer salvage operation is expected to cost about $144 million US — an estimate that also includes finding a permanent storage solution for the oil. The UN says that figure is a fraction of the estimated $20 billion US it would cost to clean up an oil spill from the tanker.

The United States contributed $10 million US for the transfer and urged other countries to chip in more needed for the operation, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

Canada has contributed $2.5 million Cdn to the salvage mission.

Delicate operation

The oil transfer came after months of on-site preparatory work and is scheduled to be completed in 19 days, the UN said.

The tanker Nautica that is to receive the oil, now renamed the Yemen, reached Yemen’s coast earlier this month and the salvage team managed on Saturday to safely berth it alongside the Safer.

“The transfer of the oil to the Yemen will prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic spill in the Red Sea, but it is not the end of the operation,” David Gressly, UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen, said Monday.

After transferring the oil, the Yemen vessel will be connected to an undersea pipeline that brings oil from the fields, said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program.

Steiner said the Safer tanker would be towed away to a scrapyard to be recycled.

The UN chief said about $20 million US is still needed to finish the salvage operation, including cleaning and scrapping the tanker and removing any remaining environmental threat to the Red Sea.