Senior Assistant Iranian Foreign Minister in Special Political Affairs Ali-Asghar Khaji and Sweden's Special Envoy for Yemen Peter Semneby held talks on recent cooperation on the termination of the Yemen crisis in Tehran.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed the areas of joint cooperation between Iran and Sweden to help resolve the crisis in this country and ways to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen as soon as possible.
They also discussed the removal of the siege against the Yemeni people, establishing a ceasefire, and eliminating the risk of oil spills from the SAFER tanker.
The floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) SAFER is located approximately 4.8 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen. Since 1988, it has been moored at Ras Isa where, prior to the escalation of the conflict in 2015, it had been receiving, storing, and exporting crude oil flowing from the Marib oil fields. The FSO SAFER is owned by Yemen's national oil company, the Safer Exploration & Production Operation Company (SEPOC).
Due to the ongoing conflict in Yemen, all production and export operations related to FSO SAFER have been suspended, but an estimated 150,000 MT (nearly 1.1 million barrels) of crude oil remain onboard. This corresponds to four times the amount spilled during the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989, even though circumstances differ greatly.
The FSO has not been inspected or maintained since 2015 and has been out of class since 2016, leading to serious concerns about its integrity. It is understood there is currently no oil leaking from the unit, but it is considered that the risk of an oil spill from the FSO SAFER is increasing as its structure, equipment, and operating systems continue to deteriorate.
HJ/IRN84401665