News / Baltic ports bar damaged Ruby, now in the Channel, due to dangerous cargo

Photo: VesselFinder

With a cracked hull and damage to its propeller and rudder, Malta-flagged vessel MV Ruby, carrying 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, is slowly making its way through the Channel.

Not long after leaving the Russian port of Kandalaksha in late August, the general cargo vessel ran aground in a storm in Norwegian waters and a Port State inspection in Norway confirmed cracks in the hull and damage to the ship’s propeller and rudder.

Since then, crew have sought a port of refuge to seek repairs, but the vessel has been refused access to Norway’s Tromso, Klaipeda in Lithuania and Gothenburg, in Sweden as few ports seem eager to take responsibility for the distressed ship, given its cargo.

The 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate equates to around 5,000 tonnes of TNT, according to one study  – just over seven times the amount that caused the August 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut, which killed 218, destroyed ships and caused structural damage to buildings 6km away.

Over the weekend, MV Ruby was also denied access to the Strait of Denmark, the entrance to the Baltic which would have allowed it to offload its dangerous cargo at a Russian port.

According to Danish news reports, on Friday a pilot was to be allocated the following day, but when the time came, authorities appeared to have changed tack.

“The ship is not going to have a pilot tonight, and the latest I’ve heard is that it’s in Norwegian waters,” DanPilot press officer Anne Heinze told DR Nyheder over the weekend.

Instead, MV Ruby is apparently making its way toward the Channel, with Malta-flagged anchor handler Amber II maintaining a distance of around one kilometre.

“We have been following [Ruby]” said one risk analyst, adding that the ship was “very much on our radar and looks like it is heading south now for the Channel, so good luck.”

Though the vessel was able to limp some 1,600km around the Norwegian coast, it now faces a fraught voyage through the Channel, past Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar and onward to Malta through two of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

And there are few good choices ahead for the vessel’s crew: should MV Ruby sink, the cargo will likely cause enormous environmental damage, including algal blooms which choke swathes of ocean life, and could lead to a shipping exclusion zone to contain the spread of pollution.

According to AIS data seen by The Loadstar throughout the morning, the Maltese destination port appears to have changed several times, between Marsaxlokk and Valetta.

Marine pollution due to vessels being refused ports of refuge is common in recent maritime history, illustrated by the examples of MOL Comfort, MSC Flaminia, chemical tanker Maritime Maisie and the 2002 Prestige oil spill for which a captain was jailed in Spain.

IMO guidelines on ports of refuge state: “It is rarely possible to deal satisfactorily and effectively with a marine casualty in open sea conditions… the longer a damaged ship is forced to remain at the mercy of the elements in the open sea, the greater the risk of the vessel’s condition deteriorating, or the sea, weather or environmental situation changing and thereby becoming a greater potential hazard.”

A bulk carrier also carrying ammonia-based fertiliser, MV Rubymar, sank in the Gulf of Aden after a Houthi missile attack earlier this year.