Yemen's Houthi rebels must allow UN access to tanker, British ambassador says

Yemen’s Houthi rebels must allow a UN team to inspect a tanker stationed in the Red Sea while loaded with more than a million barrels of oil, the British ambassador to the country said on Monday.

The tanker Safer, which has been stationed off Yemen's Red Sea coast to operate as a mini-terminal to store and offload oil from Yemen’s inland oil fields, has reportedly not been used since March 2015, when the region fell under control of the Houthis.

There are serious concerns that the tanker's structure has deteriorated significantly without regular maintenance and that it could explode.

“They just have to give the UN permission to allow an inspection team to go and make an assessment,” Michael Aron told The National.

“They will probably conclude that the oil needs to be siphoned off and the tanker then dismantled,” Mr Aron said.

The Houthis agreed last August but then reversed their decision.

“There was a team ready to go in. The UN will not have to put together another team,” Mr Aron said.

The UN has repeatedly warned that the tanker was at risk of exploding, possibly causing a disastrous oil spill in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

A leak or explosion would affect 1.7 million people working in the fishing industry and their families, the UN said.

Yemen plunged into war in 2014 after the Iranian-backed Houthis took over the capital of Sanaa.

The tanker is moored north of Yemen’s main port of Hodeidah, which handles about 70 per cent of the country’s commercial and humanitarian imports. Yemen’s Minister of Information, Muamar Al Iryani, said that a potential leak from the tanker would lead to the spilling of 138 million litres of oil in the Red Sea.

“This would be four times worse than the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska in 1989,” he said.

Mr Al Iryani said that a tanker explosion “would lead to the closure of the Hodeidah port for several months, which would cause shortages in fuel and necessary humanitarian items, in addition to an increase in fuel prices by 800 per cent.”

The prices of goods and food would double, he said.

The minister said the explosion would cost Yemen’s economic fishing stocks $60 million a year.