A massive oil tanker about to spill is another sticking point in Yemen’s failing peace process

The Iran-backed rebels want guarantees they will have access to the oil revenues, which a few years ago were estimated to be worth $80m. But there is no time for hammering out a deal, writes Bel Trew

Tens of millions of people could lose access to clean drinking water, since the spill would shutter multiple key desalination plants (Reuters)

Yemen is already in the grip of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It is also recovering from the largest outbreak of cholera in modern history, battling a plague of locusts while millions are on the brink of famine, and struggling with an unknown number of coronavirus cases, while only half its healthcare facilities are still functioning.

The war-ravaged Gulf nation could now be the location of one of history’s largest oil spills as well. If that happens, it could potentially deprive tens of millions of people of drinking water across the region, push many more in Yemen towards famine, destroy much of the wildlife in the Red Sea, and even deal a blow to the global economy.

For the past two years, experts have warned that a dilapidated supertanker holding 1.4 million barrels of crude oil off the coast of Yemen could explode or collapse creating a spillage which the UN says would be four times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989.

The Japan-built Safer, which before Yemen’s civil war acted as a storage facility, has disintegrated even further over the last few months. The clock is ticking, and action must be taken.

Since the Safer is still connected to the Ras Isa-Marib pipeline that contains an additional 1 million barrels of crude, that could also flow into the sea. The oil spill of a combined 2 million barrels would be one of the largest ever on record with devastating consequences, experts told The Independent.

While it has been a “ticking time bomb” for a while, in late May, the 44-year-old tanker sprung a leak flooding its engine room with seawater, destabilising the vessel even further and prompting a flurry of concern.

It is deteriorating with every day and time is running out, Inger Anderson, the UN’s environment programme chief told the organisation’s security council on Wednesday.

Mark Lowcock, the UN humanitarian affairs chief, said the spill could directly impact 1.5 million Yemenis.

Despite the destruction that the tanker could wreak, it is a “solvable problem”, according to Rohini Ralby of I R Consilium, a consultancy focusing on maritime law and security that has studied the Safer tanker for years and long warned of the devastating impact if it were to collapse.

However, experts need to be able to board the tanker, she added.

Ras Isa is controlled by the Houthi rebels, who have been battling Yemen’s recognised government since they seized swathes of the north of the country, triggering the start of its civil war in 2015. Over the last few years, the Houthis have refused the technical team access to the tanker.

While the Houthis have recently agreed to a long-planned UN mission to do an assessment of the volatile tanker in the next few weeks, even Lowcock admitted it may not happen as “we have… been here before”. In August 2019, the Houthis gave similar assurances only to cancel the UN visit the night before.

The Iran-backed rebels want guarantees that they will have access to the revenues of the oil, which a few years ago was estimated to be worth $80m (£64m).

But it is too late now to wait for this oil deal to be hammered out. There can be no further delays this time; too much is at risk.

The burst pipe in the engine room gives an indication of the extent of the corrosion to the ship’s internal workings. While the Houthis allowed a team onboard in May to carry out emergency repairs, those will only delay the inevitable demise of the vessel. And if that happens, Ralby warned it would create a “disaster that will last generations”.

An oil spill or explosion would immediately create a massive fire and airborne toxins that between now and the autumn would head for the embattled port of Hodeidah and drift down the Yemeni coast, according to I R Consilium’s head of research, David Soud.

“The heavy compounds of the oil mixed with sediment would settle for several generations”, he added.

Most worrying for Yemen is that it would shutter Hodeidah port, the gateway for 90 per cent of Yemen’s food, medicine and aid. According to the UN, that would trigger a 200 per cent increase in fuel costs, and double food prices across the country.

The UN believes the oil spill would also affect all of Yemen’s fishermen within a matter of days. This means the tanker has the potential to force hundreds of thousands – if not millions – more people into acute hunger, at a time when fears of famine have resurfaced.

While Yemen’s west coast would be hardest hit, the UN believes the spill would impact the entire Red Sea region, including Djibouti, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia.

Anderson explained that an estimated 28 million people rely on the Red Sea and its coastal zones for their livelihoods. The collapse of the Safer would strangle traffic on one of the world’s busiest waterways, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, impacting more than 200,000 ships that pass through its waters every year. That could hit the global economy, which is already floundering amid the coronavirus pandemic.

I R Consilium’s experts also estimate that tens of millions of people could then lose access to clean drinking water, since the spill would shutter multiple key desalination plants across the surrounding Red Sea area.

Doug Weir, of the Conflict and Environment Observatory, which first raised the issue of the tanker in 2018, has warned it would also destroy marine ecosystems, such as turtle nesting beaches, and mangroves that are essential to supporting the local fisheries and swathes of the Red Sea’s famed coral reef.

Despite the potentially devastating global consequences of the collapse of the tanker, however, it has remained a sticking point in the paused peace process.

The Houthis still hope to make money off the oil even though, according to experts, it may now be worth as little as $5m because of disintegration of the cargo and tumbling crude prices. Sanctions may also get in the way of a sale.

Yemen’s foreign minister, Mohammed al-Hadhrami, told The Independent that the government remains very sceptical, believing that the Houthis have made “empty promises”.

That said, if the Houthis do grant access and a compensation deal is hammered out later, it may not only save countless lives and livelihoods but be the goodwill gesture needed to kickstart the country’s failing peace process.