The United Nations announced on Wednesday that more than half of the oil on board the abandoned "Safer" tanker off the coast of the Al Hudaydah port in Yemen has been withdrawn and transferred.
Last week, the UN launched an operation to remove more than one million barrels of light Marib crude oil from the tanker to another vessel to prevent an oil spill and avoid an environmental disaster in the sea waters.
David Gresley, the UN Resident Coordinator in Yemen, wrote on Twitter, "More than half of the oil on board the vessel has been transferred to the alternative ship over the past seven days." The UN hopes that this operation, which costs $143 million, will eliminate the risk of an environmental disaster that could cause damages estimated at around $20 billion.
The "Safer" tanker, which was built 47 years ago and has been used as a floating storage platform since the 1980s, is anchored about 50 kilometers from the strategic Al Hudaydah port, a major gateway for shipments entering western Yemen, and has not undergone any maintenance since 2015.
Due to the ship's location in the Red Sea, any potential leak could also cost billions of dollars daily as it would disrupt shipping routes between the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Suez Canal.
