Russian Relief: Ammonium Nitrate Cargo Finally Cleared for Unloading After Lengthy Delay

The Maltese-flagged cargo ship MV Ruby, carrying 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, recently docked at Great Yarmouth in the UK, a NATO country. How writes Newsweek, the ship started its journey in the port of Kandalaksha in northern Russia on August 22 and first tried to reach Las Palmas in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. After her hull and propeller were damaged in a storm, the ship, built in 2012, was struggling for repairs in several ports across Europe.

However, several European countries, including Sweden, Lithuania and Malta, refused to dock due to concerns about the explosive cargo and the threat of damage.

In Great Yarmouth, the damaged bulk carrier will transfer 20,000 tonnes of saltpeter to another ship bound for Africa before entering dry dock for repairs.

Ammonium nitrate is a potentially explosive substance used in fertilizers and bombs.

According to Marine Traffic, the vessel’s length overall (LOA) is 183 meters and its beam is 27.8 metres. The amount of cargo on the ship is seven times more than the amount of cargo that exploded in the port of Beirut in Lebanon in 2020. At least 218 people were killed, and the explosion was caused by about 2,750 tons of the same compound.

According to the MV Ruby announcement, it received permission from the British government and the Ministry of Transport to anchor in the port of Great Yarmouth. Port Director Richard Goffin assured that the port is capable of handling dangerous cargo and that the handling of such chemicals is common practice within the port group.

The British authorities, together with the managers of the Serenity Ship Management DMCC, based in the United Arab Emirates, are now actively monitoring the ship.

The ship’s presence was troubling, partly because it was once moored about 30 miles from the WWII wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, which itself contained a significant amount of unexploded ordnance.

Ruby’s owner and manager said there were no grounds for fears about the “floating bomb”, as the British media have called it. They also blamed the media for the coverage “which negatively affects the ship’s ability to carry out normal operations to transfer cargo to another ship so it could be repaired.”

They claim that ammonium nitrate in the current state of the ship poses no risk to the ship, the crew or the environment.