A salvage operation has begun to avoid an environmental catastrophe caused by an abandoned Greek tanker laden with a huge cargo of oil after an attack in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels.
The 274-metre-long vessel, named Sounion, still had fires burning on its deck on Thursday, nearly a week after it was hit by multiple assaults by the Iran-backed militants from Yemen, who were also said to have planted bombs on the disabled ship.
But fears that the tanker’s massive cargo – a million barrels of oil – would spill into the waterway appear to have been averted. On Wednesday, the rebels said they would allow salvage crews to tow the ship, which has been on fire since August 23, to safety. And on Thursday the EU’s Red Sea naval mission Aspides said no oil spill has been detected so far.
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“It would appear, at least for now, that cooler heads prevailed,” Lars Jensen, CEO of industry consultancy Vespucci Maritime, said on LinkedIn.
The Houthis have sunk two vessels in their 10-month drone and missile campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and likely will continue if a ceasefire is not reached.
The EU mission has vowed to “facilitate any courses of action” in coordination with European authorities and neighbouring countries to avert a catastrophic environmental crisis and rescue the Sounion.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the barrels of crude oil on the Sounion were intact, but the vessel itself was leaking some oil from where it was hit, and that multiple fires were still burning.
The Houthis’ decision to grant rescue crews safe access to the Sounion came after multiple countries voiced humanitarian and environmental concerns. The move may help avoid what experts warned could be a devastating spill of 150,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Red Sea.
A spill of that volume would be more than half the size of the largest ever recorded from a ship – 287,000 tonnes from Atlantic Empress in 1979, according to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation.
Despite the respite in hostilities, risks to crew members, vessels and the environment from Houthi attacks remain.
“Even if the (Sounion) can be towed away and we avoid an environmental disaster the threat has not disappeared,” Jensen said, adding that there are dozens of oil tankers and other merchant ships still operating in high-risk areas of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
- Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard
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