Press Releases
Grant Aid for the Republic of Yemen Exchange of notes on “the Project for Preventing Oil Spill from the Floating Storage and Offloading Safer”
September 16, 2023
On September 16, 2023 (on September 15, local time), in New York, where the Headquarters of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is located, H.E. Ms. SHINO Mitsuko, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations and Mr. Abdallah AL DARDARI, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP exchanged notes on the Grant Aid project “the Project for Preventing Oil Spill from the Floating Storage and Offloading Safer” (grant amount: 141 million yen).
- The Safer is a floating storage and offloading facility moored in the Red Sea off the west coast of Yemen (approximately 7 km away from northern Yemen), where offloading oil directly from the oil fields inside Yemen was stored. Since 2015, when the conflict in Yemen intensified, and due to lack of proper maintenance and upkeep in addition to aging of the facility, the risk of oil spilling into the Red Sea was increasing, resulting in an enormous humanitarian crisis, large-scale marine environmental pollution and paralysis of marine traffic. The United Nations (UNDP) led the formation of a response plan as the international community's response to the possible crisis. The UN-led Plan is underway that includes the transshipment of oil from the Safer to the alternative facility.
- Through this project, equipment will be provided to moor the alternative facility, to which has been transshipped with oil from the Safer, thereby preventing extensive environmental damage and global economic losses in the surrounding sea area which could be caused by oil spills from the Safer.
- The UN Security Council has been discussing the project as an urgent issue, and Japan, as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, will continue to contribute to the resolution of this issue.