German official: Samples were taken from the "Safer" ship, in preparation for selling it
English - Sunday 09 July 2023 الساعة 07:13 pm
Aden, NewsYemen:
A German official revealed that the UN team assigned to rescue the dilapidated "Safer" oil ship off the coast of Hodeidah took samples of the oil in the ship with the aim of examining it in preparation for selling it later.
The Director of the Department of Crisis Prevention, Stability, Peace Promotion and Humanitarian Aid at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dike Botsel, stated that the preparatory work for unloading the amount of oil in the “Safer” is almost complete in principle, adding that during the investigations, the experts found that “fortunately, the situation is on the ship is not quite as critical as we had feared."
The German official indicated that divers examined whether there was an additional danger from outside the ship, explaining that the experts took samples to clarify the issue of the quality of the oil with the aim of reselling it, noting that these samples had not been evaluated yet.
The Safer ship contains more than 1.14 million barrels of crude oil that was extracted from the oil fields in Marib before the outbreak of the Houthi war. Its value exceeds more than $130 million, and the oil is owned by the Safer National Company for Exploration and Production Operations in Yemen.
The official at the German Foreign Ministry said: "We are now waiting for the start signal so that the tanker (Nautica) can actually go off to unload the oil, explaining that the unloading process may take a few weeks.
During the past few days, the United Nations announced the completion of the first phase of the Safer rescue operation.
The stage included examining and evaluating the floating tank. The UN plan to save the Safer tanker is divided into 4 phases spanning 18 months, at a total cost of $144 million.
The second phase will focus on transferring oil from the Safer tanker to the safe temporary ship during the summer of this year, and the process requires $80 million.
The German official's statements about the possibility of selling the crude oil in the Safer reservoir were put forward by the United Nations before the start of the rescue operation. The United Nations discussed with the Yemeni parties the possibility of selling the quantity and establishing an escrow account for this quantity.
The Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, David Gresley, said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Yemen Forum in Stockholm with the English newspaper "The National", that the parties did not oppose the idea, but they were not ready to work on its basis yet.
He added, "If we can sell the oil, we will sell it, but because of the complexities of control versus ownership, this is not possible at the moment."
Gresley expressed his "hope that a peaceful settlement could be reached through the ongoing talks mediated by the United Nations between the warring parties," noting that "the political process may help in knowing the status of the oil on the tanker. If there is a settlement, it is expected that This problem is being resolved at the same time so we have to see what happens in the future."
According to the newspaper, Gresley is "focusing at present on raising the remaining $20 million to cover the cost of the $80 million emergency operation, which he had hoped to do by the end of June."
