The 45-year-old FSO Safer, long used as a floating oil storage platform with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, has been moored off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida since 2015, without being serviced.
On November 3 the Stena Imperial reported a suspected pirate approach while on northbound passage through the Red Sea west of Yemen on her way from Far East to Rotterdam for discharge.