An international team is set to begin siphoning oil out of the hull of a decrepit tanker moored off the coast of Yemen this week, a U.N. official said Sunday. It will mark the first concrete step in an operation years in the making aimed at preventing a massive oil spill in the Red Sea.
More than 1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the tanker, known as SOF Safer, will be transferred to another vessel the United Nations purchased as a replacement to the rusting storage tanker, said Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. development program.
