{"id":60494,"date":"2023-09-12T16:44:23","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T20:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=60494"},"modified":"2023-09-12T17:15:16","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:15:16","slug":"the-ship-that-became-a-ticking-time-bomb-how-greenpeace-prevented-one-of-the-biggest-oil-spill-disasters-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/60494\/the-ship-that-became-a-ticking-time-bomb-how-greenpeace-prevented-one-of-the-biggest-oil-spill-disasters-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The ship that became a ticking time bomb \u2014 how Greenpeace prevented one of the biggest oil spill disasters in history"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the past eight years, a ticking time bomb has floated off the west coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"Satellite
Satellite pictures showing the rescue vessels NDEAVOR and NAUTICA (now renamed YEMEN) alongside or close to the FSO SAFER off the coast of Yemen, in the Red Sea, on the 19th and 20th of July 2023. 20\/07\/2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

After the start of civil war in Yemen, the FSO Safer<\/em>, a rusting tanker used to store oil, was left neglected with a skeleton crew in 2015.<\/p>\n\n

It held over 1.1 million barrels of crude oil, four times more than the amount of oil spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster<\/strong> in Alaska in 1989.<\/p>\n\n

As the ship\u2019s hull corroded and routine maintenance wasn\u2019t performed, the threat of leaks and explosions grew more real every day. The fire extinguishing system didn\u2019t work and, as other essential processes shut down, the ship became a tinderbox. Any spark risked a fire.<\/p>\n\n

A major leak or explosion would be an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe<\/strong>. It would inflict irreparable damage on the Red Sea ecosystem \u2014 one of the richest and most biodiverse in the world \u2014 and the livelihoods of the region\u2019s coastal communities. It could prevent the arrival of urgent humanitarian aid to Yemen, cause high levels of air pollution in the region, and disrupt water supplies throughout the Red Sea.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n

In 2020, <\/strong>Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa (MENA)<\/strong><\/a> had only a small campaign team \u2014 but knowing the threat the Safer<\/em> presented to the region, they knew they needed to act. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Together with Greenpeace International, they mobilized a response team, sending a letter to the secretary general of the UN. They called on the UN to provide resources and remove the oil on board the Safer<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Next, the team released a scientific report, in Arabic and English, showing the full impact of a Safer<\/em> explosion or oil spill on Yemen and nearby countries.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThe impact was immediate,\u201d<\/strong> said <\/strong>Julien Jreissati, Program Director of Greenpeace MENA. Until then, the issue had not yet received much attention in the region. After the Greenpeace report was released, the <\/strong>Safer<\/em><\/strong> \u201cfinally became a story\u201d in the countries most at risk and began receiving international news coverage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

Just five days after the launch of the report, a major political deadlock broke. An initial verbal agreement was made between the UN and the de facto<\/em> authorities in Sana’a, Yemen, to allow for the transfer of oil from the Safer to another tanker. <\/p>\n\n

There was just one problem. <\/strong>The large multinational oil companies that had used the Safer<\/em> to store oil had cut and ran at the outbreak of war in Yemen, leaving the UN to raise funds for the salvage operation alone<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

To support the UN\u2019s fundraising efforts, Greenpeace\u2019s response team reached out to national Greenpeace offices around the world with a petition calling on their governments to contribute.<\/p>\n\n

Sources in the UN say that Greenpeace\u2019s interventions were instrumental.<\/strong> The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen thanked Greenpeace for its help <\/strong>at a press conference in New York in September 2022, when he announced that the UN had finally raised enough money to begin the salvage operation.<\/p>\n\n

During the long campaign, the response team gathered intelligence by working closely with allies in the region, including international humanitarian organizations and the environmental group Holm Akhdar, all while being involved in discussions with UN agencies and some government contacts. It also developed safety plans in case of emergencies on board the Safer<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

Vitally, they kept the story in the public eye and on the international agenda by providing critical analysis to the media and the UN<\/strong> and calls to action for Greenpeace supporters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

On July 18, 2023, another tanker, the Yemen<\/em>, arrived alongside the deteriorating Safer<\/em> to drain and store its oil. The operation was not without risk and the chance of a spill was ever present throughout. <\/strong>The UN-coordinated operation finished on August 11 2023, once all the oil had been transferred off the Safer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

\"\"\/
Satellite pictures showing the rescue vessels NDEAVOR and NAUTICA (now renamed YEMEN) alongside or close to the FSO SAFER off the coast of Yemen, in the Red Sea. This is the start of a United Nations-coordinated operation that should bring an end to an almost decade-long saga triggered by the outbreak of war in Yemen. 22\/07\/2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

With the oil now stored aboard the<\/strong> Yemen<\/em><\/strong>, the immediate threat of an explosion has been averted. <\/strong>Greenpeace will continue to monitor this situation and amplify the work of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform<\/a> in advocating for the proper recycling of the Safer<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

This story highlights the glaring absence of accountability shown by the oil industry<\/strong> to pay for its damages and clean up its messes. The estimated $140 million cost of the salvage operation is nothing for major international oil companies currently making record profits \u2014 and little when compared to the estimated $20 billion cost of an oil spill.<\/p>\n\n

The fact that this catastrophe has been averted happened because Greenpeace supporters around the world rallied behind the call<\/strong> and kept boosting the story over time, making it impossible to ignore at the highest levels. Together, you changed the world.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been involved in cleaning up oil spills for years,\u201d<\/strong> said Paul Horsman, Project Lead of the Safer response team. \u201cTo be involved in preventing one makes me very happy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\"\"\/
Samadai reef is off of Tondoba Bay, 14 km south of Marsa Alam. Crystal clear waters and unique coral reefs have made the Red Sea one of the world’s prime diving destinations. 24\/04\/2006<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past eight years, a ticking time bomb has floated off the west coast of Yemen in the Red Sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":60503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,31,36],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-60494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-climate","tag-oceans","tag-victory","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60494"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60516,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494\/revisions\/60516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60494"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=60494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}