A decaying oil tanker could “explode at any time unleashing an environmental catastrophe,” Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell warned on Monday.
The Foreign Office minister called for “action now” from the international community to defuse the threat from the Safer vessel off Yemen’s coast.
Mr Mitchell and Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher are seeking to drum up tens of millions of dollars needed to remove the oil and avoid a disaster.
“I’ll be co-hosting a fundraising event on 4 May with @LSchreinemacher to resolve the Safer oil tanker issue,” he tweeted.
“Safer could break apart or explode at any time, unleashing an environmental, trade & humanitarian catastrophe.
“Action from the international community is needed NOW.”
🚨 I’ll be co-hosting a fundraising event on 4 May with @LSchreinemacher to resolve the Safer oil tanker issue.
— Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP (@AndrewmitchMP) April 17, 2023
Safer could break apart or explode at any time, unleashing an environmental, trade & humanitarian catastrophe.
Action from the international community is needed NOW. pic.twitter.com/rnjG2xqoiY
The United Nations has purchased a large tanker to store about 1.1 million barrels of oil that will be transferred from Safer.
UN officials have been warning for several years that the Red Sea and the coastline of Yemen was at risk as the tanker could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.
But the top UN official in Yemen, David Gressly, has warned that no-one had stepped up to donate a tanker and no company was willing to lease a vessel that would be used near a civil war “even though this situation has calmed down considerably”.
The United Nations has said the clean-up of a spill could cost $20 billion (£16 billion), but yet it is struggling to raise the $129 million (£104 million) needed to remove the oil from the Safer and pay for the vessel bought from Euronav (EUAV.BR) for $55 million (£44 million).
So far pledges of $95 million (£77 million) have been made, mostly by governments - of which $75 (£61 million) has been paid.
Even a public crowdfunding drive was started last year, which UN officials hope can help provide more money to “finish the job”.
The Safer supertanker was being used as a floating storage and offloading facility and is moored off Yemen’s Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa. Production, offloading and maintenance operations were suspended in 2015 because of the war in Yemen.
The UN has warned that the tanker’s structural integrity has significantly deteriorated and it is at risk of exploding.
Britain last year pledged some $7 million (£5.6 million) for the operation.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Iran-allied Houthi group ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in 2014. A Saudi-led military coalition in 2015 intervened in a bid to restore the government.
