Yemeni Tanker, W. 1 Million Barrels Of Oil On Board, Continues To Decay; Spill Not If, But When
A decaying super-tanker anchored off Yemen with 1.1 million barrels of Marib light crude oil in its hold looks increasingly likely to wreak havoc in the Red Sea, experts are warning. Talks between the U.N. and the Houthi administration in control of the area aimed at brokering a deal for international intervention reached a “dead end” late June 1, according to a Houthi statement.
The structural integrity of the FSO Safer is rapidly deteriorating, risking a catastrophic oil spill that threatens the region’s people and marine ecosystem, which scientists describe as a critical refuge from climate change for corals. A solution has proven elusive in a country mired in civil war and humanitarian crisis. The Houthis have repeatedly blocked requests to bring in international expertise, funding and equipment to safeguard the area, declining to grant permission to access the vessel under terms acceptable to the U.N. despite agreeing to a deal in principle in November 2020. The U.N. has yet to comment on the apparent impasse.
The Safer is a floating storage and offloading vessel, property of the Yemeni state-owned company SEPOC. It has been anchored at the end of the Marib oil pipeline, around 9 kilometers (5.5 miles) offshore from the port city of Hudaydah, since 1988. The Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, captured the Safer in 2015, after it took over the area from the internationally recognized government of Yemen. Zero basic maintenance since has led to dangerous corrosion as the Red Sea’s highly saline waters eat away at the Safer’s single hull unchecked. “It’s not a question of whether the Safer will eventually spill its contents, it’s a question of when,” David Soud, a security analyst at U.S.-based international consultancy I.R. Consilium, who has followed the situation closely, told Mongabay by email. Without timely maintenance, repairs or offloading of its oil cargo, the risk is a spill four times the volume of the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
A significant spill would pollute marine ecosystems, proposed marine protected areas and coastal zones north and south of the Safer, including mangroves that provide breeding grounds for fish. The pollution would have severe knock-on effects for local people, experts say. The impact on corals may have an extra sting in its tail. A growing body of research suggests that northern Red Sea corals may be uniquely well adapted to rising ocean temperatures. “The corals in the Red Sea very likely represent humanity’s best chance to preserve a major coral reef ecosystem intact beyond the end of this century,” Anders Meibom, a biogeochemist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, told Mongabay. Meibom co-authored a 2017 study revealing unprecedented heat tolerance in northern Red Sea corals.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/talks-break-down-over-crumbling-yemeni-tanker-threatening-massive-oil-spill/