Safer tank, a looming disaster at the Red Sea

The derelict oil tanker FSO Safer, moored some five miles (6 kilometers) off the Yemeni coast in the Red Sea and used as an oil storage facility, is a floating environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.

The vessel, which could break apart or explode at any moment, holds 1.1 million barrels of crude oil. That's equivalent to 48 million gallons (218 million liters) of oil or four times the amount that was spilled in the Exxon Valdez oil disaster near Alaska in 1989.

A oil spill from the FSO Safer would destroy coral reefs and other sea life in the Red Sea, jeopardize hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fishing industry, and cut Yemen off from supplies of food and fuel, the United Nations and other organizations have warned.

Domestically the situation is also anything but hazard free. FSO Safer belongs to the a Yemeni company, the Safer Exploration and Production Exploration Company, while the warring Houthi militia controls Hodeida, the port closest to the ship.

Following UN negotiations, the Houthi militia agreed in March this year to the first stage oil transfer and signed a memorandum of understanding. The document isn't legally binding, however, and some doubt whether the Houthis will keep the agreement. In the past the Houthis have thwarted several UN attempts to inspect or repair the vessel, or called off interventions at the last minute.

Yemen is in its eighth year of a civil war between the Iran-backed Houthi militia and the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government. The country is now divided into the Houthi-controlled north and the government-controlled south.

Meanwhile, the war has plunged the country into the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe. The vast majority of Yemenis rely on international aid to fend off famine.

An oil spill from the FSO Safer would restrict food aid for more than 8.4 million people in Yemen by disrupting access to the ports of Hodeida and Salif, through which "almost 70% of aid is brought into the country," said Julien Jreissati, Program Manager for Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa.

Potable water for about 10 million people in Yemen would also be threatened since desalination plants on Yemen's coast could be affected, he added. In addition, such a spill would completely close Yemeni fisheries, which support 1.7 million people, Jreissati said.

The impact would also be felt beyond Yemen and its coastal waters. According to a recent Greenpeace study, desalination plants on the Red Sea coasts of Eritrea and Saudi Arabia could be affected within three weeks after a spill.

The Red Sea is home to pristine coral reefs and an incredible array of marine life, and an oil spill in what is one of the world's most biodiverse oceans would spell disaster both ecologically and economically.

If the tanker sinks, experts are also worried about the possible effects of the resulting oil spill on international shipping routes through the Suez Canal. An estimated 12% of global trade passes through the Suez, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

Yemen expert Jens Heibach, a research fellow at the Hamburg-based GIGA research institute, believes that the FSO Safer and the catastrophe it poses is being used by Houthis as leverage for imminent peace negotiations.

Since the beginning of last Ramadan, Yemen has experienced the longest, albeit fragile, peace agreement since the war began in 2014.