End of the Year Issue
By Emilia Kohlmeyer
January 31, 2022
Eight kilometers off the shore of Yemen lies a looming environmental and humanitarian catastrophe: the FSO Safer. The floating oil storage and offloading vessel is in imminent danger of sinking or exploding, which would lead to a disruption of the food supply, disrupt global trade, and cause a massive environmental disaster. The vessel is currently under control of the Houthi movement, which lacks the resources to mitigate the damage and prevent international actors’ access to the site-citing distrust due to previous agreements that were not complied with.
The United Nations have warned that a spill could reach quadruple the size of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, which is the second largest spill in US waters, affecting thousands of kilometers of coastline.
A spill from the FSO Safer could take months to clear and would have disastrous effects on its surrounding area. Currently, 80 percent of Yemen’s population is food-insecure. The nearby ports of Al Hudaya and As Salif — which receive about two thirds of Yemen’s food supply —would be blocked for up to six months. Furthermore, it would contaminate water utilized for desalination processes not only in Yemen but also in Saudi Arabia, upon which both depend. In addition, it would deplete the fishing industry which at least 1.7 million people in the surrounding region rely on. Lastly, it would impact access to the Suez Canal strait through which 10 percent of the global trade passes, having a grave impact on global supply chains.
The vessel was built in 1976 and has been anchored North of the Yemeni city Al Hudaya since 1988. It has since been utilized as a transit point for oil exports by the Yemeni government and presently harbours 1.14 million barrels of oil at a value of over 80 million US Dollars. During the Yemeni Civil War, the vessel fell into the hands of the Houthi Movement and has since faced structural disintegration. According to numerous research papers the FSO Safer has been classified at imminent risk of sinking or explosion as of October 2021.
At 50 years old, the FSO tanker has surpassed the average scrapping age of oil tankers by 19 years. Furthermore, the 50 head crew has shrunk to only seven members, a team too small to oversee the numerous essential repairs that the ship necessitates.
Since losing power in 2017, it has been declared a dead ship with only two diesel generators providing limited electricity to smaller devices. This is particularly dangerous given that it has halted essential mechanisms such as “inerting,” a process in which inert gases are pumped into the crude oil storage to counter the emission of highly flammable hydrocarbons.
Therefore, the ship is susceptible to explosion by as little as a cigarette butt.
It is assumed that the surrounding seabed contains Houthi mines. However, the officer responsible for laying them has been killed and therefore their location remains unknown.
United Nations-led inspections have been hindered by the Houthis, who refuse to provide safety assurances.
Yemen has been in a Civil War since 2014. The predominantly Sunni country was ravaged by the armed conflict between the government led by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Shiite Houthi Movement. The single-candidate election of Hadi in 2012 led to strong Houthi opposition, who viewed the election as a continuance of Ali Abdullah Saleh who was removed during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011. This was exacerbated by disagreements over the new constitution, proposals of a federal state structure, and foreign influence. In 2015 A Saudi-led coalition intervened to counter the Houthi advance. However, with further escalation, the conflict had been considered a proxy war between Saudi Arabian and Iranian influence.