A salvage team is set to begin siphoning oil out of rusting tanker moored off Yemen, UN says

BY SAMY MAGDY
Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — A senior United Nations official says a salvage team is set to begin siphoning oil out of the decaying tanker moored off the coast of Yemen. Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. development program, tells The Associated Press that more than 1 million barrels of oil stored in the Safer tanker are set to be transferred to another vessel the U.N. purchased as a replacement to the rusting floating storage. The transfer of oil is a “critical stage” in an operation that aimed at avoiding an environmental catastrophe. The rusting tanker is a Japanese-made vessel built in the 1970s.