Red Sea

Best CCTV Security Camera in Brampton Cheap CCTV Camera in Brampton An international team began siphoning oil out of a decrepit oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Tuesday, the United Nations chief said, a crucial step in a complex salvage operation. In a statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the operation a mission “to defuse what might be the world’s largest ticking time bomb.” For years, many organizations have warned that the neglected vessel, known as FSO Safer, may cause a major oil spill or even explode. “In the absence of anyone else willing or able to perform this task, the United Nations stepped up and assumed the risk to conduct this very delicate operation,” Guterres said.  The tanker carries four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the UN. Now, the more than 1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the tanker will be moved to another vessel the UN has purchased, Guterres said.  The Safer is moored six kilometres from Yemen’s western Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Ras Issa, a strategic area now embroiled in the country’s civil war. The vessel has not been maintained for eight years and its structural integrity is compromised, making it at risk of breaking up or exploding. Seawater has entered the engine compartment, causing damage to the pipes and increasing the risk of sinking, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press in June 2020. For years, the UN and governments of other countries as well as environmental groups have warned that if an oil spill — or explosion — occurs, it could disrupt global commercial shipping, causing untold damage to the global economy. In total, the Safer salvage operation is expected to cost about $144 million US — an estimate that also includes finding a permanent storage solution for the oil. The UN says that figure is a fraction of the estimated $20 billion US it would cost to clean up an oil spill from the tanker. The United States contributed $10 million US for the transfer and urged other countries to chip in more needed for the operation, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. Canada has contributed $2.5 million Cdn to the salvage mission. The oil transfer came after months of on-site preparatory work and is scheduled to be completed in 19 days, the UN said. The tanker Nautica that is to receive the oil, now renamed the Yemen, reached Yemen’s coast earlier this month and the salvage team managed on Saturday to safely berth it alongside the Safer. “The transfer of the oil to the Yemen will prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic spill in the Red Sea, but it is not the end of the operation,” David Gressly, UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen, said Monday. After transferring the oil, the Yemen vessel will be connected to an undersea pipeline that brings oil from the fields, said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program. Steiner said the Safer tanker would be towed away to a scrapyard to be recycled. The UN chief said about $20 million US is still needed to finish the salvage operation, including cleaning and scrapping the tanker and removing any remaining environmental threat to the Red Sea. Home CCTV Camera in Brampton Best CCTV Camera in Brampton United Nations Development Program Administrator Achim Steiner, seen speaking during a Thursday news conference, says a deal has been signed to secure the purchase of a large crude carrier that can help get oil off a rusting tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen. (Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press) The United Nations (UN) announced Thursday it signed an agreement to purchase a very large vessel that can transfer more than 1 million barrels of crude now stranded in a rusting tanker off the coast of war-torn Yemen. The deal is the first step in an eventual operation to evacuate the cargo and eliminate the threat of massive environmental damage from a possible oil spill or explosion. Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program, told a news conference that the deal was signed with Euronav, the world’s largest independent tanker company, to secure the purchase of a large crude carrier for the endeavour. The double-hulled carrier, found “following an intense search on an extremely stressed global market,” is expected to sail within the next month to Yemen’s Red Sea waters and park alongside the FSO Safer, he said. “If all things go according to plan,” the ship-to-ship crude transfer would start in early May,” Steiner said. The Japanese-made Safer was built in the 1970s and sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of oil pumped from fields in Marib, a province in eastern Yemen. The impoverished Arab Peninsula country has for years been engulfed in civil war. Yemen’s conflict started in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. The following year, a Saudi-led coalition entered the war to fight the Houthis and try and restore the internationally recognized government to power. No annual maintenance has taken place since 2015 on the ship, which is is 360 metres long with 34 storage tanks. Most crew members, except for 10 people, were pulled off the vessel after the Saudis entered the conflict. In 2020, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that seawater has entered Safer’s engine compartment, causing damage to pipes and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases, has leaked out. Experts said maintenance was no longer possible because the damage to the ship is irreversible, according to an Associated Press report. The situation has raised fears of a massive oil spill or explosion that could cause an environmental catastrophe. The UN has repeatedly warned that the tanker could release four times more oil than the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster