In this episode we speak to a company at the heart of a major operation to transfer more than a million barrels of oil from a decaying floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) off the coast of Yemen.

The operation to remove the oil from the FSO Safer was sanctioned by the United Nations and took place to prevent a major environmental disaster. It meant months of planning, as well as negotiations with the local Houthi leaders, to ensure the transfer could take place safely.

A team from SMIT Salvage, part of Boskalis, led the operation. We hear from Operations Manager Paul Van ‘t Hof and Robert Meijer, who is Manager of Projects, who were both in Yemen as the transfer took place. We are also joined by Joseph Divis, Underwriting Director, Offshore & Renewables at NorthStandard, to look at how NorthStandard helped ensure this operation could take place.

[00:00:11] Kait Borsay: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in July

[00:00:26] Kait Borsay: He was referring to the ship to ship transfer of more than a million barrels of oil from a decaying floating storage and offloading unit, an FSO, off the coast of Yemen.

[00:00:51] Kait Borsay: By the 11th of August, the operation to remove the oil from the FSO Safer was successfully completed. The UN backed operation had been two years in the making and was critical to stopping a major spill in the Red Sea. Overseeing operations were a team from Smit Salvage, part of Boscalis, a leading global dredging and offshore contractor and maritime services provider.

On this episode of Alongside, the podcast from NorthStandard for the shipping industry across the world, we're joined by Smit's operations manager, Paul Van't Hof. And Robert Meijer, Manager of Projects. Welcome to both of you.

[00:01:34] Robert Meijer: Thank you. Thanks for inviting us.

[00:01:42] Joseph Divis: Thank you.

[00:01:49] Joseph Divis: Certainly. Thank you. So I am one of the underwriters in the offshore and renewable sector of the NorthStandard PNI club. We ensure about 100 members operating worldwide across both the oil and gas industry, as well as alternative energy industries such as offshore wind. As a team, we use our expertise to support and service our operators who perform a wide variety of operations.

and salvage operations, and we make contact with them on a day to day basis, supporting their operations and activities and salvage projects, which are often complex and typically occur in challenging and difficult conditions. The Safer project itself came across our desks and centered around the offtake of oil from a tanker, which in itself is a fairly standard operation for Smit, but the wider circumstances made this a completely complex and difficult and unique operation.

[00:03:11] Joseph Divis: We've done similar complex jobs with Smit, but never really anywhere. All these factors combined in such a way to have a potential high consequence bill like this. So everyone's familiar with the Exxon Valdez, which is unfortunately an infamous oil spill. And for context, the FSO Safer had four times the amount of oil on board as the Exxon Valdez.

So you can imagine what the consequence would be in the event of an incident.

[00:03:51] Paul Van't Hof: Um, yeah, the ever so Safer was put in Yemen as a storage unit in the 1980s, 87. And yeah, it was already decided that this vessel was old and had to be replaced. And it was just before the war started. And then the war started. And yeah, people walked off because they couldn't look after the vessel anymore.

So it became a high concern, and it was already on the radar of the United Nations. And they were working on an attempt to do some repairs that the Didn't work. And we thought that repairing this vessel, which was already, uh, let's say out of class, it's maybe technical term, but if you compare it with cars, it was not under MOT anymore.

So you couldn't, uh, use it actually. And you could also not get it certified. So we said, well, doing repairs, uh, is probably not the way to go. Plus the vessel is fairly old. It's probably safer to move this oil into a shootable vessel.

[00:05:01] Robert Meijer: One is the security part. So we were, uh, we were covered by the UN and they have something called the deconflicted zone. So the areas they mentioned, they arranged with the Houthis and with the coalition from Saudi Arabia, these areas cannot be attacked. And then they have, they have to notify all the routes they're taking with all the cars.

So even when we were taken on board with those routes, and then we had to, uh, what we were planning, of course, to meet with the Houthis. That brought a different security situation in there. And that was all new to us as well. But that eventually in the beginning went well.

And day three, there was another audience. So we're also a little bit puzzled. Yeah. Who is making it a decision and who is basically interested in what? So, uh, yeah, it was completely different as what we are normally used to.

[00:06:11] Paul Van't Hof: Well, I think that, uh, the United Nations need to have agreement from north and the south, the, uh, original, uh, government, the IRG, International Recognized Government. So, uh, when we were having discussions in the North to convince the Houthis about this plan, we still need to have approval from the South.

So at the last, um, visit we did before the execution of the operation, we had to go both North and South and try to convince everyone about the plan. And, and the difficulties which we expected in order to explain them that, uh, yeah, this is of course not a walk in the park. You will definitely run because we couldn't inspect the vessel.

So normally you do a proper inspection and you know what you're up to. But now we had to, yeah, work on assumptions and on our experience. And we had to work, uh, let's say a plan, uh, with sufficient contingencies, which, which we did. But then we had to discuss all those uncertainties with various parties and, and try to get them on board and get approval for this.

[00:07:26] Robert Meijer: I would say we still had about a year plus when the moment it was decided that we, that the UN was gonna execute with it plan that we brought in, then they, they, they, they pushed forward the UNP to, to contractually pick it up. That was on the one side. But we had been mostly working with UNRC and, and we had to deal with these different agencies who have, uh, different, who approached this project from a different side.

So you mentioned it was green lit, the plan was green lit. Then they had to simultaneously look, uh, get the funds in. and start working on the plan while later on start working on the contract.

[00:08:00] Paul Van't Hof: Yeah, although that was not officially communicated and we do have our own assessments. For us, it seems that the winter months were really problematic, so January, February. But locally they said you have to get out before September.

Okay. Joseph, I'm going to bring you in again here from a NorthStandard point of view. What was your role in the buildup to this project?

And the risks being assumed, getting all that information, looking at it and reviewing it and collaborating with our various stakeholders took a lot of time. I think, um, we had to liaise with the international group that are pooling partners and our reinsurers to ensure that they were happy. We also engaged ABL as a third party, a verification company to look at the more critical aspects of the operation.

As an individual heading into a war zone for what was a really risky operation.

So you felt supported, but you also have your own, your private situation to think of, you have insurances to think of, and then you have to get a good feeling from Poscales that they are there with you.

Even though you have been there a couple of times, when you really start to execute it, it is different. For us, what was important, if we could just assist with preventing an enormous potential environmental disaster, we thought, okay, if we can do anything, well, then we also have to accept the other side, which is preventable.

Probably that we move into an unexplored area. I can say from a personal level that I didn't feel unsafe there during the first, let's say, visits. During the operation we had some moments, but during the first visits people treated us, well, basically normal. We didn't feel that they were hostile against us, not at all.

But we fully realized that, uh, Initially, it was the two of us, uh, went there a couple of times to, uh, yeah, to prepare this project. But the moment we, uh, would start the operation, we would have over a hundred people, and that's then including the marine crew, in country, and we had to work on a solution. So we had many, many talks with the United Nations, and I think it's important to mention that without the United Nations, we couldn't have done this job.

I mean, uh, we at the end, uh, worked for them, and they were, uh, talking with, uh, the Houthis, and they, Made all the deals with you. It is also about our personal security, um, and a safety back out plan if things would go wrong different. So that was important, but it took a long time for us to set it up. And we also work with a company called Control Risk.

They do the threat assessment. They make a risk analysis and at the end they come up with, let's say, the proper mitigation strategy, and that was taken on board by the United Nations.

[00:12:24] Paul Van't Hof: We went into a compound that was not a UN compound, it was a compound, uh, let's say locally. Um, and the people who were there, some of them we knew up front, and at a certain point, the Houthis came in, but also with their personal protections. Yeah, but they were all carrying serious guns, and not one, more than one.

And basically, if you Google Yemen, and you see all those pictures of the people, well basically, those people came in that room with the same guns. impression in their face. So initially, uh, yeah, we thought, okay, where are we? And, uh, but yeah, that kind of. Quite quickly turned around and, uh, there were normal talks and as said, we didn't feel threatened hostile by them.

And also to know that we're all here and it's together. Together with the UN and everybody involved.

[00:13:29] Paul Van't Hof: technical side, as said, we were not able to do an inspection. So a lot has to be based on our experience and on assumptions. And of course, yeah, safety was paramount also because we know that if things would go wrong, uh, Joseph next to me would not be extremely happy and we would not be happy either.

So, and yeah, of course it's our reputation and we were there to prevent an environmental disaster, not to create one. So we first said, okay, safety of the vessel. We first have to make the vessel safe, uh, make sure that there is a safe tank environment. But we also knew, yeah, it's an old hull and we couldn't do any measurements before we were there.

So without becoming too technical, we did All kind of, uh, structural failure engineering to see, okay, can we birth those two vessels alongside each other? So the other tanker where we had to take the oil to had to come alongside the old suffer. And we were working in the Netherlands with simulator, uh, Uh, institutes, uh, to simulate the mooring operation.

So the mooring master had done the operation already many times on the simulator just to make sure that all the forces would stay within acceptable levels. And that's also what we discussed then with, uh, ABL who was there on behalf of NorthStandard. So this and this and this has been done. So that gave us quite some comfort and when we were there we said, okay, we now do some measurements and then we're going to check with the assumptions based in, uh, we put in our engineering if this is all correct.

And. That was the case. So we knew up front that what we had designed would work.

[00:15:05] Paul Van't Hof: The main asset, uh, was the tanker which was bought by the United Nations. Initially we thought that we could just transfer it to a tanker, and the tanker can take off the oil and go. But the Houthis were quite clear the oil should stay and the tanker should also stay. So the Houthis, uh, wanted to have a tanker.

So this was the key asset. And that was bought by the United Nations. We came in with a work vessel where we had our crew and our pumps and all our equipment. And the operation was furthermore supported by two tugboats for the mooring operation of that tanker which the UN bought. But overall, we had more than 100 people on, uh, on site.

[00:15:58] Kait Borsay: And how long did it take?

So all happened on the same time, because obviously the whole project in itself kind of kickstarted with the UNDP purchasing the vessel. to replace the suffer, and that also got us on a time limit that we had to mobilize by a certain time to be in field at the right time. So, all this had to come together, and there, in the end, there were some issues with the registration of the vessel, which were a few days of delay, but generally, we sticked within the timing that we had, which was about, you know, Forty days.

[00:16:50] Robert Meijer: So that's where also Paul and I came in because we were based in Hodeidah. And for one, start off, most meetings we had over the last three years, actually, the whole operation took, uh, were based in Sana'a. So we kept meeting the authorities there in the UN. Eventually, we also moved to Aden. Because of the southern government and the operation itself was run from, from Hodeida.

Now that was another seven hours drive from Sanaa. There's no connection. There's hardly any connection there with any flights. So we were based in Hodeida, uh, overseeing the operation. Now you asked me, where were the Houthis in this one? They had a, they have a software technical committee and they had part of, part of them were placed also in Hodeida.

So we are, we met daily with them to talk about the operation. We met daily with several UN agencies and we met with the, with the Houthi, software committee to keep them updated.

[00:17:44] Paul Van't Hof: Well, I think that, uh, although, uh, we at the end, uh, got everything achieved, what we want to achieve, and, uh, as we mentioned, uh, the first two years, we were trying to build a trust with the Houthis, which worked out quite well. And once we were executing the operation, you could definitely see that there was not a lot of trust towards what we or the United Nations were, uh, were doing.

So every time we wanted to do something on site, uh, we noticed that, uh, communication gap which, between SANA, where the, uh, center part of Houthi leadership was, You know, Dido, as Robert mentioned, where the Suffolk Committee was and the worksite that was not there. So for simple things like taking a boat out to do some draft readings, basically measure outside the ship how deep sea is in the water, that already created a lot of confusion.

So they always were extremely suspicious and for them, of course, it's not a daily operation and so that created a lot of, yeah, let's say, sometimes difficult moments.

[00:18:45] Paul Van't Hof: Well, I think at the end, of course, we are extremely proud that we're able to achieve it. And this environmental threat was mitigated. Um, but it has been, let's say, a very long and difficult road to get there. And it was also not easy to execute it. So I think that we were happy that everyone got out safe and that it was solved.

So it was a big relief for us. Okay, guys, it's over now.

It was always. In our business, it's much more clear where you stand with this part. And when we got to the contracting, and that was a whole different experience. But eventually, specifically when you saw the vessel moving, which was in April, that was a good point. You are going to say, and I think eventually, when we were allowed to leave the country.

[00:19:51] Joseph Divis: It shows actually there's so much expertise in the maritime industry and obviously having collaborative and transparent relationships with our members and operators and between parties to to sort of work towards a common goal is really um really should be encouraged. I think the industry could maybe be a lot more proactive rather than reactive and and try and not have a similar situation to the FSO Smit arise in the future but I think yeah mainly it shows you know Teams collaborate, you know, what good can come out of it.

I think this is a really good news story in a, in an era where there's a lot of bad news about. So I think it's, it's definitely one that should be talked about.

Um, Absolutely fascinating. I've really enjoyed hearing about the story and I've, I've no idea whether it will be a once in a lifetime experience or not, but it's been, it's been so fascinating to hear about it. Thank you so much for joining us. Paul Vantoff and Robert Meyer from Smit Salvage and Joseph Divis from NorthStandard.

Well, for more on the security situation in the Red Sea, you can listen to our Alongside Future Thinking episode with John Thompson from Ambrey, where he discusses the emerging and changing threats to shipping. For now, that's all from us. Join us next time on Alongside, where we continue to explore key topics affecting the maritime industry and those who are part of it.

Click follow on this podcast to ensure you don't miss an episode. Thanks again to all of our guests. From me, Kait Borsay, thanks for listening.