More trauma for residents near the port of Beirut
Lebanon send out international arrest warrant for the Owner and Master of the ship that brought the Ammonium Nitrate to Beirut 7 years ago:
Of course the people that confiscated the cargo, but failed to store it safely, (even after several warnings) are not to blame.
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And the people responsible for lighting the fuse with a torch, whether they were port employees or contractors hired by the port, are not responsible either.
next they will round up all the farmers that use amonium nitrate and charge them with a conspiracy to blow up BeirutâŠlol
The Rotterdam city council is concerned about ships coming to the port with large quantities of ammonium nitrate. Several dozen ships with a large cargo of ammonium nitrate moor in Rotterdam every year. It is surprising that the Harbor Master René de Vries thinks there is no reason to adjust the rules, especially since these ships are moored in the middle of densely populated residential areas.
For instance at the end of August in the Rotterdam Merwe harbor, on the border of Rotterdam and Schiedam, the seagoing vessel Detley Reefer with 7009 tons, a number of times the amount of ammonium nitrate that detonated in Beirut, was docked. The Detley Reefer came to pick up other cargo in Rotterdam. The ammonium nitrate comes from the Yara company in Sweden and is used to make explosives for mining in Chile. The cargo of ammonium nitrate remained on board during the stay in port.
It is true that by itself ammonium nitrate is a stable substance but an accident could easily lead to a detonation of the shipâs cargo which in this case would be disastrous. We have seen in Beirut how easy that goes. The Harbor Masterâs opinion is dangerous and strange because there are plenty of places in this big harbor which are out of the way from residential areas.
In about the same location a violent explosion took place on 12-07-1968 on board the Agua Clara moored at the quay of the Tankercleaning also on the border of Rotterdam and Schiedam, sandwiched by residential areas. It was a completely irresponsible place to clean shipsâ tanks and after the incident they were moved to the Botlek area far away from the city.
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Yara is a Norwegian fertilizer company (previously Norsk Hydro of Telemark Operation fame) They have plants making ammonium nitrate many places, incl. in The Netherlands.
Actually they are in the news today from joining forces with Ărsted to make âGreen Ammoniaâ using wind power at their plant in Zeeland:
PS> The âgreen ammoniaâ will be used to make fertilizer, but may also be sold as marine fuel.
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It seems like all it would take is a stoke of the pen. However I think the pen is being used to write checks for other purposes.
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These are cargoes that that do not liquefy. Well that is something. And one must admit that it gives off a nice virgin white smoke once the cargo is decomposing.
M/V Cheshire - Ammonium nitrate fertiliser cargo decomposition on the 14th August 2017
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Wow! That is impressive!
Another beautiful picture, for at the living roomâs wall, of the decomposing process which is seen here in full swing. The heat developed while decomposing was obviously not intense enough to blow the ship to heaven.
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I think the orange smoke means it got pretty close to detonating though.
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I am not sure what they produce at the moment. Their website doesnât say anything about their products, only historical data. From that I saw that they closed an ammonium nitrate factory in 1992. Also their building is clueless to even their name. All rather mysterious. I think that they arenât producing ammonium nitrate as they are allowed to have only 35 tons of that stuff in stock.
Anonymous Inc. with an impressive tree line.
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To the best of my knowledge they produce Ammonium Nitrate based fertilizer, which is what was carried on M/V Cheshire.
This is not classified as Explosives, or even hazardous cargo when carried on ships.
Nothing secret about Yara. They are a publicly traded company and partly owned by the Norwegian Government, with plants worldwide:
I agree that they could have learnt from the Singapore âInstant treeâ technology.
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I donât know if this clear up anything:
By the Gods.