UN raises alarm on Red Sea oil tanker ‘time-bomb’

Geneva (AFP), 30 Aug, 2022 - The UN appealed Tuesday for the last $14 million needed to try and prevent a stricken oil tanker from triggering a disaster off Yemen that could cost $20 billion to clean up.

The decaying 45-year-old FSO Safer, long used as a floating storage platform and now abandoned off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida, has not been serviced since Yemen was plunged into civil war more than seven years ago.

If it breaks up, it could unleash a potentially catastrophic spill in the Red Sea.

David Gressly, the United Nations’ resident and humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, leads UN efforts on the Safer.
“Less then $14 million is now needed to reach the $80 million target to start the emergency operation to transfer oil from the Safer to a safe vessel,” said Gressly’s communications advisor Russell Geekie. “We’re deeply concerned. If the FSO Safer continues to decay, it could break up or explode at any time,” he told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from Sanaa.