Update 9 p.m.: The Ruby is heading for the port of Great Yarmouth, in the Norfolk County in England. She will arrive there tonight to be unloaded.
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Ruby press release n°2
Sunday, October 27, 2024 – 16:00
Having left the port of Kandalakcha in the White Sea, east of Murmansk, on August 22, 2024 with around 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, the Ruby is heading at a speed of 8 knots for an unknown destination. She is sailing north. She is “on order”, as the shipping industry puts it. Before taking off, the Ruby was refuelled by the small UK-flagged bunker tanker Fortuna III. The Ruby is currently accompanied by the tug CMS Thunderer, also UK-flagged.
The Ruby ‘s path between 12 noon on Friday October 25 and 3 p.m. UTC on Sunday October 27
Screenshot MarineTraffic
Since sustaining damage in the Norwegian Sea, the exact nature and severity of which are unclear, she has been expelled from the port of Tromso in Norway. She is unwanted in Sweden, Lithuania, Denmark and other Northern and Western European countries, including France.
The Ruby focused all kinds of fantasies. Described in turn as a floating Hiroshima and a drifting Beirut, she has been at anchor off the Thames, outside British territorial waters, since September 25. It is not impossible that she is sailing back to Russia to be unloaded and undergo a thorough inspection. From mid-November, the port of Kandalaksha is icebound and cargo ships must be preceded by an icebreaker. The Ruby could also take refuge in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Whatever the Ruby‘s exact destination, Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) hopes that a port of refuge has already been designated by the Emirati shipowner and the other parties involved. The crew, including Syrian sailors, have been held hostage and ostracised for 9 weeks.
For more information on the Ruby, her crew, her owner, and Russia’s export of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, read press release n°1 published by Robin des Bois and Mor Glaz on October 4. The two French NGOs were concerned about the doom and gloom and the rumours surrounding the Ruby, which were preventing a solution to this event at sea. The fact that the cargo was of Russian origin didn’t help matters, on the contrary. The Ruby was even suspected by some Western media of being an instrument guided by Putin and likely to jeopardise the security of a NATO base in Norway. “There are now hundreds of floating bombs like the Ruby on the world’s oceans and in dock. As long as the fertiliser is not thermally decomposing and is not the victim of external aggression, there is no risk of explosion” points out Jacky Bonnemains, director of Robin des Bois. The French NGO has published and regularly updates information on the dangers of ammonium nitrate fertilisers and ammonium nitrate explosives (see linked, only in French). It specialises in the transport of dangerous goods by sea.
The Ruby on July 3, 2024, New Brighton, England © Malcolm Cranfield
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