UN hands over vessel to Houthis as oil transfer of decaying tanker set to start

HODEIDAH, Yemen, July 18: The United Nations delivered a replacement vessel to Yemen's Houthi group on Monday as part of an urgent mission to avert a potential oil spill from the decaying Safer tanker off Yemen's western coast.

The handover ceremony took place aboard the Nautica, the replacement tanker chartered by the UN in March that arrived at the location of the Safer on Sunday. During the ceremony, which was attended by UN officials and representatives from the Houthi authorities, the tanker was officially renamed the Yemen, a Xinhua correspondent witnessed.

A team employed by the UN will start the transfer of approximately 1.14 million barrels of crude oil from the Safer to Yemen in the coming days.

The Safer, originally constructed as a supertanker in 1976 and later converted to a floating storage and offloading facility (FSO) for oil, is currently moored approximately 4.8 nautical miles off the coast of Hodeidah Province in Yemen.

Currently, the Safer is under the control of the Houthis. However, the internationally recognized government of Yemen also asserts ownership of the tanker and its crude oil. The disputes between the two sides have disrupted the regular maintenance of the tanker, resulting in its decay over the years.

The UN has warned that a spill from the FSO Safer could have a devastating impact on the Red Sea and the coastline of Yemen. The spill could release four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which killed thousands of seabirds and marine mammals and caused widespread environmental damage.