Page 14 - DMEA Week 21 2022

DMEA NEWS IN BRIEF DMEA

ships are carrying oil taken on board at effort to conceal its identity. catastrophic. It would cost $20 billion to clean
the southern Iraqi port of Basra. Prudent It was among five ships identified by it up.”
Warrior’s owner Polembros Shipping said that US authorities as controlled by Russian The Safer has been stranded off Yemen’s
it had lost communication with the ship and Promsvyazbank, which came under sanctions oil terminal of Ras Issa since 2015, and U.N.
its 24 crew members. at the outbreak of the Ukraine war. officials have warned it could leak four times
Iran had threatened to take “punitive Greek authorities last month impounded as much oil as spilled during the 1989 Exxon
action” earlier on Friday, over Athens being the ship and its 19 Russian crew members Valdez disaster off Alaska.
involved in the US seizure of an Iranian oil near the coast of the southern island of Evia, Gressly said the operation should be done
tanker in Greek waters. due to EU sanctions. before September when turbulent winter seas
Greece’s Foreign Ministry said it made The 115,000 tonnes of oil the ship would increase the risk of a breakup.
strong representations to the Iranian contained was sent to the US on Thursday, The environmental impact of a spill would
ambassador in Athens over the “violent Reuters reported. be severe with desalination plants closed,
taking over of two Greek-flagged ships” in the It was unclear whether the cargo was cutting off a water source for millions of
Arabian Gulf. impounded because it was Iranian oil or due people, the U.N. said.
“These acts effectively amount to acts of to the sanctions on the tanker over its Russian It could also disrupt vital shipping
piracy,” the ministry said. links. through the Bab al Mandab strait and create
It called for the immediate release of Iran and Russia face separate US sanctions. a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe
the vessels and their crews, and said these The Pegas was later released because of centred on a country already decimated by
acts would have “particularly negative confusion about the sanctions over its owners. more than seven years of war, the world body
consequences” in bilateral relations and in THE NATIONAL said.
Iran’s relations with the EU, of which Greece is No maintenance operations have been
a member. UN seeks funds for carried out on the Safer since 2015, when
The ministry said that earlier Friday, an a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen
Iranian helicopter landed on the Greek- offloading oil from Safer against the Iran-aligned Houthis after
flagged Delta Poseidon in international they ousted the internationally recognised
waters, about 37 kilometres off the coast of The United Nations will launch a $144 million government from the capital, Sanaa.
Iran. appeal on Wednesday for an operation to The coalition controls the high seas off
“Armed men then took the crew captive,” offload a million barrels of crude oil from Yemen.
it said, adding that two Greek nationals were a tanker stranded off the coast of war-torn In early March, the Houthis, who control
among the crew. Yemen for years which threatens a major the area where the tanker is moored and
“A similar incident has been reported environmental disaster. David Gressly, the UN the national oil firm that owns it, signed an
on another Greek-flagged vessel, that was Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for agreement with the United Nations to deal
carrying seven Greek citizens, close to the Yemen, said he hoped a donors conference with it.
coast of Iran,” the ministry said. held with the support of Netherlands in the “The first step is to find a way to quickly
Tehran summoned the Swiss ambassador Hague would quickly mobilise funds to avert move the oil into a temporary vessel until the
to Iran, who represents US interests in the a catastrophe on the Red Sea coast and its long term storage issue is resolved. We’re not
country, on Friday to complain about the region. pursuing at this moment any attempt to sell
seizure of the Iranian-flagged Pegas. He told Reuters the amount they were the oil. It’s politically complicated to do that at
The previously Russia-flagged ship was looking to raise was low “compared to the this moment,” Gressly said.
renamed Lana on March 1, seemingly in an potential impact of a spill that would be REUTERS

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