Financial Times: We must stand up to the Houthis to avoid an environmental
The Financial Times has urged swift action against the Houthi terrorist militia to avert a deadly environmental disaster in the Red Sea by sending a giant tanker and transporting 1 million barrels of oil from the Safer tanker berthed off the coast of Yemen, and the Safer offshore vessel owned by the Yemeni government without any maintenance since the Houthi terrorist militia took control of the capital Sana’a in September 2014.
No maintenance
“A Safer whistle has not been maintained since 2015 due to lack of maintenance, which has created an explosive mix of oil and rust, but the UN has a more ambitious demand: One giant tanker, which can be used to stop an impending environmental disaster off the coast of Yemen, the Safer vessel off the west coast near the entrance to the Red Sea, has long been a ticking time bomb.”
One of the big tankers
The paper added: The tanker is one of the largest ever built, positioned more than 30 years ago off Yemen, where it was previously used to help store the country’s oil production, but since the war in Yemen began in 2015, all maintenance on the ship has stopped, despite the fact that 1 million barrels of crude oil are in its tanks.
Explosive mixture
The paper noted that without maintenance, the ship is without energy, so there can be no venting out of crude oil, which has created an explosive mix within the rust hull already, and it is impossible to say exactly when it might split off or explode, but shipping experts use words like “soon” when discussing the possibility that the ship would eject its contents, which is four times the size that Exxon Valdez spilled off Alaska in 1989 in the Red Sea.
The solution is near
“After years of careful diplomatic work, the UN believes it is close to resolution, and the Houthi militia has agreed that rescue work can begin – first fixing the ship and then transporting its cargo to another, more seaworthy tanker, the paper explained.”
UN $82 million
But although the U.N. raised about $82 million to fund the operation, from government donations to collective contributions, markets are moving much faster than diplomacy, the paper said, as prices of oil tankers have soared and Russian oil now largely banned from Europe’s ports must instead trek the long road to Asia; “The same amount of crude oil travels five times the previous distance, and a single trip from Russia’s Baltic ports to India, which takes a few weeks, can now earn shipowners nearly $15 million.”
“Providing a fully manned supertanker such as a very large tanker for an indefinite period of time will cost far more than the meager $82 million the UN has raised, and last May the operation was estimated to cost more than $140 million and costs have since risen.”
Raising more money would take time the UN might not have, so the unconventional appeal, supported by the shipping publication Lloyds List, came out for the industry to intensify and help secure a supertanker, either as a donation or at a price the UN can afford. Talks between industry participants and the UN are in full swing, but an arrangement to secure an oil tanker has not yet been finalized, according to people familiar with the matter.
Cleaning bill
The newspaper continued: It is a call designed to talk about more than just a better nature for the shipping industry. In the event of a leak, the UN estimates that the cleaning bill could reach at least $20 billion, and the shipping industry itself would face additional costs. Tanker owners cannot allow their ships through heavily polluted waterways because of the risks to goods and crew; Which means going the longer way, which means that the costs of industry will rise faster.
Carrier operator gains
So the industry needs to help find a way, where tanker operators are enjoying windfall profits from the war in Ukraine, and collectively, it shouldn’t be out of the will of a multi-billion-dollar industry to find a way to provide a single carrier that is fit for the job.
The potentially catastrophic cost to the environment is reason enough to act urgently to Safer, but for the shipping industry, this disaster is in their interest too, the paper concludes.
