UN starts removal of oil from decaying tanker in Red Sea

London, 25 July, 2023, (Oilandgaspress) – The United Nations-led project to prevent a massive oil spill from the FSO Safer supertanker off Yemen’s Red Sea coast began today 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.

The oil aboard the Safer is being pumped into the replacement vessel Yemen (formerly Nautica) in a ship-to-ship transfer that is expected to take 19 days to complete. After its arrival at the site on 30 May, the leading marine salvage company SMIT, a subsidiary of Boskalis, has stabilized the 47-year-old Safer. The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which contracted SMIT, is implementing the operation to remove the oil.

UN Secretary-General António 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.”


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