European Union warships and salvage vessels have successfully towed a stricken Greek tanker to safe waters in the Red Sea.
The move puts the 163,800-dwt Sounion (built 2006) further north from where it had been anchored while burning and abandoned after repeated Houthi attacks for nearly a month.
The European Union Naval Force’s EUNAVFOR Aspides operation said in a social media post on Monday that the Sounion is now in a “safe area”.
No oil has leaked from the Iraqi crude cargo the ship was carrying when the Yemen-based militant group attacked it several times in the second half of August.
“The completion of this phase of the salvage operation is the result of a comprehensive approach and close cooperation between all stakeholders committed to preventing an environmental disaster affecting the whole region,” EUNAVFOR Aspides said in its statement.
TradeWinds has reported since Thursday that the salvage operation, involving at least two vessels from Piraeus company Megatugs, was underway.
Sources had told TradeWinds that the vessel would be towed to a safer location further north, away from the Houthis, where the ongoing flames on and below deck could be extinguished.
At a later stage, the Sounion’s cargo is to be reloaded in a ship-to-ship transfer.
The vessel continues to pose a serious environmental threat, even though sources have been telling TradeWinds for quite some time now that there is no imminent structural reason for the fire to cause it to sink.
Some spillage observed from the Sounion since last month’s attack was attributed to fuel that leaked after a Houthi missile struck its engine on 21 August.
About a week later, Houthi militants boarded the abandoned ship and used explosives to set its deck vents alight. The flames and smoke still visible on the Sounion on Monday are the result of gases that continue burning in the vents.
This is the second attempt undertaken by salvors to rescue the Sounion.
An initial attempt that involved different tugs was abandoned about two weeks ago, with the salvors involved at the time citing safety concerns.
The Houthis have made no statements about the ship’s rescue.
However, they are not known to have made any attempts to prevent salvors from approaching the Sounion. According to some reports, the Houthis even signalled they would not attack salvors, to avoid an environmental disaster on their own shores as a result of their actions.
No Houthi attack on any vessel passing the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden has been reported for about two weeks now.
