Yemen Rebels Send Repair Team to Stricken Tanker Risking Leak
(Bloomberg) --
Yemen's Houthi rebels say they've sent a maintenance team to repair an aging oil tanker laden with more than 1 million barrels that the United Nations and environmental groups see as a threat to marine life in the Red Sea.
The decaying vessel Safer has been moored off Houthi-controlled Hodiedah province since 1988. The crude, worth some $40 million at today's prices of around $40 a barrel, was on board when civil war broke out in Yemen in 2015.
The repair team may fail to prevent the Safer from leaking oil, however, because the Saudi Arabian-led coalition fighting the Houthis has blocked access to necessary equipment, Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, a member of the Houthi ruling political council, said in a statement. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, can't sell the oil; international buyers are wary of dealing with them, and the Saudi-led coalition controls waters near the vessel.
READ: Yemen Rebels Say Don't Blame Us If Million-Barrel Tanker Leaks
Yemen's UN-recognized government has said the rebels would be to blame for any leaks from the ship because it's moored in a Houthi-held area. The Houthis have refused to accept any responsibility. The conflict in Yemen has caused severe hunger, an outbreak of deadly cholera, and -- in the words of the UN -- “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time.”
An oil spill from the Safer could destroy the livelihoods of 126,000 fishermen, according to a statement posted last month on the Yemen-based website Holm Akhdar. Some 850,000 tons of fish in the Red Sea, the Bab El Mandab waterway, and the Gulf of Aden could perish, it said.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
