{"id":40811,"date":"2024-03-22T08:05:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T05:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/after-ukrainian-attack-st-petersburg-moves-ammonium-nitrate-out-of-port\/40811\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T08:05:38","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T05:05:38","slug":"after-ukrainian-attack-st-petersburg-moves-ammonium-nitrate-out-of-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/after-ukrainian-attack-st-petersburg-moves-ammonium-nitrate-out-of-port\/40811\/","title":{"rendered":"After Ukrainian Attack, St. Petersburg Moves Ammonium Nitrate Out of Port"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>Amidst a regular drumbeat of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian infrastructure, the Port of St. Petersburg has decided to halt the handling of ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer that also doubles as an explosive. An explosion involving the same substance leveled half the port of Beirut in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kommersant, after the Ukrainian drone strikes on <a href=\"https:\/\/maritime-executive.com\/article\/video-fire-breaks-out-at-russian-lng-terminal\">Ust-Luga<\/a> in January, St. Petersburg&#039;s governor feared that a similar attack on the ammonium nitrate transfer terminal could cause a disaster. The St. Petersburg terminal normally handles about three million tonnes per year, and &#8211; if ignited &#8211; a commercial quantity of the substance could potentially generate a devastating blast.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This category of cargo will likely be shifted to Ust-Luga, once the preparations are made to receive it. In the interim, reports Kommersant, there is enough demand on the domestic market to absorb the supply without exports.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Russian Railways has also restricted the transport of ammonium nitrate to several switchyards in the St. Petersburg area, according to Ukrainska Pravda.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ammonium nitrate has a long history of causing serious industrial accidents. The Port of Beirut blast killed about 200 people in 2020; the Texas City blast of 1947 killed more than 500; and the massive Tianjin explosion of 2015 &#8211; caused by a combination of ammonium nitrate and other substances &#8211; killed 173 people and caused $1.5 billion in insured damages, plus another $9 billion in supply chain damages and lost profits.&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>maritime-executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amidst a regular drumbeat of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian infrastructure, the Port of St. Petersburg has decided to halt the handling of ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer that also doubles as an explosive. An explosion involving the same substance leveled half the port of Beirut in 2020. According to Kommersant, after the Ukrainian drone &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[9781,1164,1738,9782,19032,953,19031,1255],"class_list":["post-40811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-ammonium","tag-attack","tag-moves","tag-nitrate","tag-petersburg","tag-port","tag-st-petersburg","tag-ukrainian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/40812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}