Mission to prevent oil tanker disaster

The UN has started an operation to remove 1.1 million barrels of oil from a decaying supertanker moored off Yemen’s Red Sea coast, in a bid to avert an environmental disaster

FSO Safer supertanker
There is imminent risk that vessel could explode or break apart, UN warns

YEMEN
Sana’a
OMAN
ERITREA
SAUDI
ARABIA
ETHIOPIA
DJIBOUTI
SOMALIA
125 miles
200km
Bab-el-
Mandeb
Gulf of Aden
INDIAN
OCEAN
Red Sea

YEMEN
Hodeida
RED SEA
Ras Isa
oil terminal
FSO Safer
6 miles
10km

STAGES OF SALVAGE OPERATIO
1 Experts from salvage company Boskalis/SMIT transfer oil from Safer to UN-owned ship Nautica
2 Nautica moored to anchored loading buoy
3 Safer towed to recycling yard
Cost: Over $140m


Safer anchored since 1988 and abandoned after Yemen’s civil war broke out in 2015

Vessel holds four times amount of oil spilled by Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989

Major spill would devastate fishing communities, expose millions to polluted air, and block critical food and supplies into Yemen

Spill could cost up to $20bn to clean up

Sources: UNDP, CEOBS, Reuters
Pictures: UN, Apple Maps
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