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July 18, 2023

U.N. Begins Effort to Drain Oil from Stricken Supertanker Off Yemeni Coast
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A ship dispatched by the United Nations has arrived off the coast of
Yemen to begin pumping over 1 million barrels of oil from a decaying
supertanker anchored in the Red Sea. The ship was abandoned off the
coast of Yemen in 2015, at the start of the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war
against Houthi rebels. It contains four times the amount of oil spilled
off the coast of Alaska during 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster. On Monday,
U.N. humanitarian coordinator David Gressly said engineers had secured
the rusting ship against a potential catastrophic spill or explosion.

David Gressly: "The structure of the FSO Safer, even though it is a
decaying vessel, the hull is still very secure, which means that the
transfer of the oil will be relatively low-risk."



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