The Maltese cargo ship Ruby, which is loaded with 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate from Russia, will not sail into Danish waters during Saturday.
This is what press officer at DanPilot Anne Heinze tells Nordjuyske.
– The ship is in Norwegian waters and will not enter Danish waters today, she says.
On Friday evening, DanPilot, which is the state’s pilotage company, informed Ritzau that the cargo ship would sail into Danish waters as planned during Saturday, but now the situation has changed.
According to ship monitoring service Marine Traffic, the ship was moving at just 0.4 knots per hour on Saturday afternoon and its navigation status was listed as stopped.
Anne Heinze does not want to comment on why the ship will not pass Danish waters today, and refers to the Danish Maritime Authority.
The Danish Maritime Authority writes in a written response to Nordjyske:
“The Danish Maritime Authority is aware of the ship’s limited maneuverability and that the ship is loaded with dangerous goods. Against this background, we have set up a number of conditions to maintain sailing safety. We have thus ordered MV Ruby to use tugboat assistance and pilotage in connection with the ship’s passage through Danish waters.”
Nordjyske has been in contact with the harbor guards at Hanstholm, Hirtshals and Skagen Harbour, respectively. At present, they all deny that there are plans for the ship to dock with them.
To the radio newspaper at DR P1 at 12 o’clock, Jacob Kaarsbo, who is a senior analyst at the think tank Europa, says that this is an emergency situation.
He assesses this based on the fact that Ruby has been near a NATO base in Tromsø Oil and natural gas installations near Bergen.
– The most likely thing is that it is part of a hybrid war, where you want to scare and see how the Nordic countries react when it comes near coasts and critical installations, he says.
The route has not changed
On Marinetraffic.com it appeared earlier in the day that the ship was scheduled to pass close by Skagen before continuing through the Great Belt and further into the Baltic Sea, hoping to dock in Klaipeda, a port city in Lithuania.
Now it appears on the website that the route has been changed, so that the ship must pass through the Øresund instead of the Great Belt. But according to Anna Heinze, that is not correct.
If and when the ship has to pass through Danish waters, it will take place through the Great Belt, she says.
– The ship is too big to be able to pass through Øresund, she says.
Explosive cargo
As Nordjyske has previously written, the ship is loaded with 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate from Russia, which is the same type of material that caused the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion ever in Beirut on 4 August 2020, and which cost 218 people their lives.
According to explosives expert and safety manager at the Department of Chemistry at Aarhus University, Peter Hald, however, much needs to be done before ammonium nitrate explodes, and there is therefore no imminent danger associated with the cargo ship’s passage through Danish waters. He tells DR.
– It is not the case that if the ship bumps into something or someone drops something into the cargo, it will explode, the explosives expert told the media.
Still, there’s good reason to be cautious when dealing with the substance, which is mainly used for fertilizer and explosives, in the quantity that the freighter Ruby has right now. According to Peter Hald, it has explosive power equivalent to a first-generation atomic bomb.
This has also caused the Danish Maritime Authority to respond with a navigational warning:
“Hazardous cargo tow. Extreme caution is advised. >>RUBY>AMBER II
The warning was sent out on Friday, but on Saturday morning the tug Amber II has left Ruby.
The 183 meter long Maltese ship is heading towards Skagerak on Saturday morning. Photo: Vesselfinder.com
Rejected in final destination
It was not the cargo ship’s original plan to sail through Danish waters.
Earlier this month, the ship tried to seek an emergency port in Tromsø, located in northern Norway. In connection with a grounding, the ship has suffered damage to the rudder and propeller, and cracks have appeared in the hull.
However, out of fear of the explosive cargo on board the ship, the Norwegian authorities rejected the ship, which is why it has now turned around and is instead headed for Lithuania.
If Ruby hopes to dock there, it must first get rid of the ammonium nitrate.
The ship is not allowed to bring its cargo into the port of Klaipeda.
This is what Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė says to the Lithuanian media LRT – Lithuanian National Television and Radio.
In the same article, the country’s defense minister, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, explains that it is far from the first time that a similar situation occurs when Russian ships request permission to enter European ports for repairs.
– There are many such situations and not only here. I have visited Denmark many times and they also see the routes of very, very weak, rusty and outdated Russian ships when they pass through certain Danish straits, the minister has told the members of parliament.
The cargo ship is here on Saturday morning at 7.50. The captain of Ruby has requested pilot assistance on the voyage through Danish waters before the ship passes Gedser and heads into the Baltic Sea. Vesselfinder.com
2024-09-21 06:17:10
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