2023-07-28 22:30:50
JEDDAH: Risks of an environmental and humanitarian disaster off the coast of Yemen diminish as the UN-led operation to pump over a million barrels of crude oil from a storage vessel progresses abandoned and transfer them to a replacement tanker.
The operation, lasting three weeks and costing 143 million US dollars (1 US dollar = 0.90 euros), began on Tuesday to defuse what experts have described as a ticking time bomb. If the condition of the FSO Safer had been allowed to deteriorate further, huge amounts of oil could have spilled into the sea, causing incalculable environmental and economic damage.
“It is a great relief to see the start of the long-awaited UN salvage operation of the deteriorating FSO Safer, anchored off the Yemeni coast with 1.14 million barrels of oil,” said Ghiwa Nakat. , executive director of Greenpeace MENA, to Arab News on Friday.
“We are on day three and progress is steady,” she said.
An international team pumps crude from the Safer to another ship — the Nautica, renamed Yemen — purchased by the UN for the rescue mission. The operation follows months of preparatory work on site. According to the UN, it will be completed in less than three weeks.
1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the deteriorating Safer (Photo provided).
“Reaching this crucial moment in the UN’s plan to prevent a spill in the Red Sea is a remarkable example of the power of international cooperation and diplomacy,” said Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, in a tweet this week.
In comments to the media on Sunday, Steiner revealed that once the process is complete, Yemen will be connected to an undersea pipeline that brings crude oil from the fields.
Efforts to set up the Safer oil recovery mission were initially delayed by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, which controls the maritime territory, and which denied UN teams access to the site. Months of diplomacy finally made it possible to begin the work.
Disputes over ownership of the oil and the replacement vessel it is pumped into are still expected. Nevertheless, many Yemenis view progress on the Safer issue as a positive sign.
The UN team, assisted by specialist Kevin O’Connell, uses hydraulic pumps (Photo, AFP).
“I hope this will be the start of the peace process,” Fathi Fahem, the Yemeni business leader who proposed a replacement vessel for the Safer two years ago, told media.
On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement: “The ship-to-ship transfer of oil that began today is the next critical step to avert an environmental and humanitarian disaster on a colossal scale. .”
“The United Nations has launched an operation to defuse what could be the world’s biggest time bomb. This is a hands-on mission that is the culmination of nearly two years of political work, fundraising and project development,” he said. added.
Guterres requested an additional $20 million to complete the project which would include scrapping the Safer and removing any remaining ecological threats to the Red Sea.
1690602032
#UAE #bans #rice #exports #reexports #months