It was a ticking time bomb. A dilapidated tanker near Yemen’s coast has been filled with oil and at the same time has been close to either sinking or exploding. But now the potentially huge environmental disaster has been averted, because the UN has removed 1.1 million barrels of oil from the dilapidated ship. If the oil had ended up in the sea, it would have had catastrophic consequences for the marine environment, animals and coral reefs. But also for several million people who depend on fishing and importing food and emergency aid. Although it was quick to move the oil to safety, there are several years of negotiations behind it and it ended up being a race against time for the UN. – We almost lost that race, says David Gressly, the UN country and humanitarian chief for Yemen, in a video call to Verdens Beste Nyheder. Since 2021, he has been in charge of the work to remove the oil. An old ship in the Red Sea The tanker FSO Safer, which contained the large amount of oil, lies in the Red Sea approx. nine kilometers off the northern coast of Yemen. The ship has been here since 1988. Although Safer was built as a giant tanker in 1976, it has been converted into a kind of floating petrol tank, a so-called “floating storage and offloading unit” – hence the letters FSO in the name. It has thus functioned as a platform, to which oil from the desert in Yemen has been transported out, to then be filled over to other ships. The ship is 47 years old and that is an age that requires maintenance – but the maintenance was put on hold due to the conflict in Yemen. This has caused many to fear two scenarios in particular: That the ship would either sink or that there would be a hole in the hull. And the disaster has been close. In 2020, there was a hole in the ship, and suddenly seawater gushed into the engine room. – If nothing had been done about it, the ship would most likely have sunk, after somewhere between 48 and 72 hours, says David Gressly. Then in 2020 we would have had an oil spill that we would all talk about today as one of the biggest oil spills in world history. Would affect the economy, world trade and emergency aid There would be enormous consequences if the oil ended up in the sea. – It would have been a disaster of global proportions. It’s not even an exaggeration to say that. It would not only affect the Red Sea, but also international trade. It was a time bomb, which everyone was aware of, but which no one knew how to handle, says David Gressly. According to the UN, approximately half a million people work in the fishing industry in Yemen. A large oil spill in the Red Sea would put an end to fishing and remove their livelihood. It would also mean that entire communities would be exposed to toxic substances from the oil in both the water and the air. A large oil spill would also mean that the ports closest to it would have to close. Food, fuel and other vital supplies arrive in the country through the ports – and right now 17 million people lack food on the table in Yemen. In addition, desalination plants on the coast, which turn the salty seawater into drinking water, would risk having to close – and in that case millions of people would be left without drinking water. An oil spill could also mean that shipping through the Suez Canal – where approx. 12 percent of the world’s trade is sailed through – could have been blocked. Not to mention the costs it would have on nature. The Red Sea is filled with unique species that do not live anywhere else and is also home to one of the world’s longest coral reefs. Political uncertainty and conflict put a damper on the wheels Fortunately, the ship managed to neither explode nor sink – and the rescue work itself went quickly. On July 25, oil began to be pumped from the worn-out tanker to a safe ship. Already on 11 August – 18 days later – the work was finished. In return, the work to get an agreement to save the oil safely has been going on since 2018. One of the reasons why it has taken time is that the ship is off the coast of Yemen. For nine years, Yemen has been trapped in a violent conflict with major consequences for the population. – There is no doubt that there is a large and serious humanitarian crisis, which is partly connected to the fact that Yemen was a poor country before the current conflict, says Maria-Louis Clausen. She is a senior researcher in global security and worldview at the Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS, and she has a particular focus on Yemen. She says that the current conflict began when the internal group, the Houthis, captured the capital Sana’a in 2014 in protest against the then president and the ongoing political process. This has led to the country being divided into north and south today. The northern part of the country – where the capital Sana’a is located, among other things – is under the control of the Houthis. The southern part of the country is formally under the control of the internationally recognized government, which is particularly supported by neighboring Saudi Arabia. The conflict is therefore one of the reasons why it has been difficult to get an agreement to move the oil in place. – It could have been obvious to sell the oil and use it for something more sensible, rather than it just lying there and potentially becoming an oil spill. But the internationally recognized government says it was a state-owned company that owned the ship before the conflict. The Houthis say they controlled the area, so they wanted payment for the oil if it were to be removed, says Maria-Louise Clausen. The UN’s David Gressly also says that the economic interests helped put the wheels in the wheels for an agreement. – So we decided to put it aside. It was complicated and the ship could fall apart at any moment, he says. – We said, let’s just focus on getting the old oil from the ship to a new ship – and that will give more time to solve the long-term problem. So that’s basically what we did. Most difficult to obtain financing It wasn’t just the conflict that put a damper on the wheels. It proved difficult to obtain the money that the operation needed. – The political solution actually only took about six months to solve – but the challenge then went from the political to the financial, says David Gressly. According to the UN, the entire budget for the rescue operation is 143 million dollars. – I thought it would be easier to get financing than it was, because we had estimated that the clean-up would cost 20 billion dollars, he says. It would thus be far more expensive to clean up an oil spill than to prevent it. – That business model is quite transparent. But actually getting Member States and the private sector to contribute was difficult, says David Gressly. When something is everyone’s problem, it becomes no one’s problem. And then everyone waits for someone else to take responsibility. On the other hand, he has no doubt that the money would have flowed in if the disaster had actually occurred. – There are resources set aside for emergency preparedness. But there is no one in any country who has set aside money in a budget to prevent such a situation. There is no budget for prevention. So many Member States struggled to find a way to finance it, even if they had the will to do so, he says. A huge relief But they managed to obtain the majority of financing. A loan of 20 million dollars from the UN humanitarian fund, donations from a large number of countries and crowdfunding made it possible for the UN development program to be responsible for the actual operation of buying oil tanks and moving the oil to safety. By far most of the total of 1.14 million barrels of oil were removed, but just under two percent of the oil cargo is still on the ship and will be removed with a final clean-up by FSO Safer. – When we finished moving the oil, we went to Djibouti, where the logistical base for the operation was. Here I met the government and the port authorities to thank them for all the support they have shown us, says David Gressly. – I met many ministers, the foreign minister and the president. They all said the same thing: We are so relieved that this has been fixed. But there is still no clarification on what will happen to the oil, and the old tanker still needs to be safely recovered – but the risks of one of the largest oil spills in world history have been averted.
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One million oil barrels have been removed from dilapidated ships: the UN has averted a huge environmental disaster
