FSO Safer
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | FSO Safer | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | oil tanker, floating production storage and offloading | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | Yemen | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Sea / ocean | Red Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Yemen | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 13 km from land |
| Position | 15.1333, 42.6000 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
FSO Safer (pronounced "saffer" ) is a floating oil storage and offloading vessel that is moored in the Red Sea north of the Yemeni city of Al Hudaydah.
Prior to being emptied, the ship held more than 1.14 million barrels of oil. Its structure has been left exposed to humidity and corrosion with little or no maintenance since Yemen's civil war started in 2015. An impasse exists between Houthi groups and the Saudi-backed government over its ownership and responsibility. Inert gas on the ship that normally inhibits an explosion had dissipated, putting it at risk of exploding and causing an environmental disaster. The ship is currently undergoing a United Nations-led salvage operation which has successfully removed the oil and will place it in much safer long-term storage.
Diving & visiting
In March 2023, in a statement from Achim Steiner, it was announced that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had purchased the Safer, along with a tanker undergoing refit in China to begin the first phase of the operation to remove an estimated 1.14 million barrels of crude oil. The whole operation is estimated to cost US$129 million, of which US$75 million had been received, and a further US$20 million was pledged.
In April 2023, the very large crude carrier Nautica left China to eventually store all oil offloaded from the Safer. In May 2023, a United Nations operation was initiated to extract 1.1 million barrels of oil.
Location
- Recorded position: 15.1333, 42.6000 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Red Sea
- Nearest coast: Yemen
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article FSO Safer (revision 1371485641), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Salvage”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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