FSO Safer

FSO Safer is a floating oil storage and offloading vessel that is moored in the Red Sea north of the Yemeni city of Al Hudaydah.

Safer was built in 1976 by the Hitachi Zosen Corporation in Japan as the oil tanker Esso Japan.[1] As built, she had measured 192,679 gross tons and 406,640 deadweight tons, with a length of 362 metres (1,188 ft) and a beam of 70 metres (230 ft).[1] She was powered by a single steam turbine that gave her a service speed of 15.5 knots (17.8 mph).[1]

In 1987, Esso Japan was converted into an unpropelled storage vessel and renamed Safer.[1] She was moored about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) off of the coast of Yemen in 1988 under the ownership of the Yemeni government via the national oil company, which used her to store and export oil from inland oil fields around Ma'rib.[2][3] In her storage configuration, Safer has a capacity of about three million barrels of oil.[3]

In March 2015, in the early days of the Yemeni Civil War, Safer fell into the hands of Houthi forces when they took control of the coastline surrounding her mooring.[3] In the following years, her structural condition deteriorated significantly, leading to the risk of a catastrophic hull breach or explosion of oil vapors that would typically be suppressed by inert gas generated onboard.[3][2] The ship is estimated to contain about 1.14 million barrels of oil valued at up to US$80 million, which became a point of contention in negotiations between the Houthi rebels and Yemeni government, both of which asserted claims to the cargo and vessel.[4][5] In early December 2019, Al Jazeera reported that oil had begun to leak from Safer,[5] though subsequent satellite imagery showed that the report had been inaccurate and there was no sign of oil outflow from the ship.[6]