The United Nations (UN) has announced an online donor conference that will take place on May 4 to raise funds to safely remove oil from an abandoned tanker off Yemen’s coast. The conference aims to fill a $29 million gap in funding required for the operation.
The FSO Safer has not been serviced since Yemen’s devastating civil war broke out in 2015 and was left abandoned off the rebel-held port of Hodeidah. This port is a critical gateway for shipments into the country, which is heavily dependent on emergency foreign aid.
The operation to remove the oil from the tanker is expected to cost $148 million, but prior funding drives have come up short. The first recovery phase will cost $129 million, of which only $99.6 million has been pledged, the UN said. It estimates the second phase will cost a further $19 million.
“We urgently need to close the $29 million funding gap for the emergency operation and raise the additional funds needed to ensure safe long-term storage of the oil,” said David Gressly, UN co-ordinator for Yemen.
The UK and the Netherlands are organising the online conference, which has an “aim of fully funding both phases of the Safer project” according to a UN statement on Thursday. The UNDP also announced on Thursday that it had finalised a contract with SMIT Salvage, a subsidiary of the Dutch company Boskalis, to transfer the oil from the Safer to the Nautica and to prepare the tanker for towing once it has been emptied.
A SMIT vessel was due to leave on Thursday for the Red Sea loaded with “generators, hydraulic pumps and other specialised equipment to carry out the operation on the Safer, which no longer has functioning systems,” the UNDP said. The start of operations is expected sometime in May.
An enormous oil disaster is looming, which could have serious humanitarian, environmental and economic implications. But we now have a chance to prevent that disaster,” said Dutch trade and development minister Liesje Schreinemacher.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) recently made a noteworthy purchase, acquiring a supertanker named Nautica in March.
This will allow the crew to make any necessary preparations before continuing on with the mission at hand.
The supertanker will need to navigate through potentially treacherous waters to reach its destination. Furthermore, the extraction process itself is no small feat and requires careful planning and execution.
Do you know that the UNDP has already handled such situations in past and fully committed to take it seriously.
