Local Editor
Member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Mohammed Ali al-Houthi described the US State Department’s report regarding the Safer oil tanker as “speculations”.
Al-Houthi said on his Twitter account that the Supreme Political Council and Yemen’s National Salvation government has presented a proposal with details to avert a great environmental disaster.
The Yemeni official called for the deployment of a technical mission led by the UN to assess the condition of the tanker and make initial repairs and maintenance.
“Based on the UN technical team’s recommendations, a safe extraction of oil from the tanker would be agreed upon. The oil will then be pumped back to the tanker through the Safer pipeline,” al-Houthi wrote in a Twitter post.
The Safer oil tanker was constructed in 1976 and has been moored off Yemen's coastline near Hodeidah since 1988, acting as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) terminal to receive Yemeni export crude and load it onto vessels.
Safer is estimated to hold 1.1 million barrels of oil. Because of its age, a lack of maintenance, and the breakdown of the crude inside, it has led to a growing risk of a chemical explosion.
Source: Yemenwatch.net
