- An abandoned oil tanker is currently at risk of spilling 157,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Red Sea.
- Labour calls for immediate action from the UK government to ‘protect people and planet’.
- Shadow ministers warn off the Safer FSO Oil tanker due to its long-running humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
- The rapid structural deterioration as a result of neglect of the ship has meant that the decomposing tanker is significantly vulnerable to a breach and spillage.
A recent news report written by Elliot Chappell for the Labour List reveals how Labour demands action on abandoned oil tanker to ‘protect people and planet’.
Abandoned oil tanker
The abandoned oil tanker rests for past five years and the area is under the control of Houthi rebels fighting the Saudi-backed Yemeni government. The UN’s attempts to inspect the ship have so far been blocked.
Call for action
In a letter to the minister for the Middle East and North Africa, shadow ministers Anna McMorrin and Wayne David have warned that the Safer FSO Oil tanker could exacerbate the long-running humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
The shadow ministers call for action from the UK government. They ask for secure and preserve funding for the mobilized inspection team to examine the rusting tanker.
They seek to use World Maritime Day and the theme to champion new frameworks to remove damaged or decaying tankers or ships from our seas.
The shadow ministers mentioned that “We must work with our international partners to prepare economic, humanitarian, environmental and logistical contingency plans to protect Yemen’s most vulnerable.”
Rusting tanker
Having fallen into the hands of Houthi rebel forces in 2015, the rusting tanker has been severely neglected with rapid structural deterioration and the metal work corrosion in the saline waters of the Red Sea.
The condition of the tanker and its decomposition means the tanker is significantly vulnerable to a total water breach of its tank, which holds over 1.1 million barrels, 157,000 tonnes, of crude oil.
Oil spill
A breach of the tanker and an oil spillage of any magnitude would deepen the world’s gravest humanitarian emergency in Yemen, dealing a significant blow to a country crippled by conflict, Covid-19 and now famine.
“The environmental threat posed by the tanker endangers, what the UN calls ‘one of the most important repositories of biodiversity on the planet’,” they added.
It would also spark an environmental catastrophe, destroy endangered biodiversity, risk the health of coastal communities, and deliver a crushing economic and logistical setback to many aid-dependent and fragile states reliant on Red Sea shipping.
The FSO Safer situation has been ongoing for over five years. The scale of the humanitarian and environmental catastrophe which we are seeing unfold demands a solution.
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Source: Labour List
