WSJ - Behind the Beirut Explosion: Seven Years of Official Neglect

LINK (SIAP)

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The 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate sailed into the city nearly seven years ago. The ship’s captain at the time called it a “powder keg.”

The cargo, a chemical compound used for blasting mines and building car bombs, was seized when the ship carrying it was found unseaworthy and its owner failed to pay certain fees, according to the ship’s captain and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, a global trade union. It ended up in a warehouse as Lebanese officials, lawyers, judges and a Russian shipper bickered over what to do next.

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The European Union database Equasis says the Rhosus was being managed by a Bulgarian company, whose director said that he has never owned it and suggested that the real owner must have falsified documents and used his company’s name. The Bulgarian Transport Ministry said that according to its records the last known owner was Teto Shipping.

The company is controlled by Igor Grechushkin, a Russian businessman based in Cyprus. Mr. Grechushkin didn’t return a request for comment.

After picking up its cargo in the Black Sea port of Batumi, Georgia, the ship sailed for the port of Beira, Mozambique. But Mr. Grechushkin, the Rhosus’s owner, told the captain that he had no money to fund the journey through the Suez Canal to Africa so the ship would have to pick up extra cargo in Beirut, Mr. Prokoshev said.

Fábrica de Explosivos de Moçambique, a firm that makes commercial explosives in Mozambique, said it had placed the cargo’s order for ammonium nitrate from a Georgia-based company called Savaro, but the shipment was never paid for as it wasn’t delivered.

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Once in Beirut, the ship began to load road vehicles to pick up the extra cash. But Lebanese authorities refused to clear it, saying that the ship wouldn’t be able to carry the heavy new load, according to the captain and Ms. Ananina, the official with the International Transport Workers’ Federation. The officials encountered other technical violations and detained the ship.

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Later that year, a Lebanese court granted permission for the crew to disembark, given the dangerous cargo, and authorities discharged the cargo to the port’s warehouses, according to a letter by lawyers for Mr. Prokoshev and the ship’s creditors.

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The vessel stayed on in the Beirut port. Mr. Prokoshev, the captain, said the ship had a hole in its forepeak, a storage compartment, which the sailors pumped periodically. When they abandoned the vessel and the cargo was moved to the warehouse, the water accumulated and it sank, he said.

Meanwhile, concern mounted over the ammonium nitrate. In a December 2017 letter, reviewed by the Journal, Mr. Daher, head of Lebanon’s customs, warned a judge of “the extreme danger that these goods remain in the warehouse under inappropriate weather conditions.” A solution should be found “in order to preserve the safety of the port and its workers,” he said.

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TL;DR - Ship owned by a sketchy firm in Bulgaria/Cypress was transporting the ammonium nitrate to a commercial explosives company in Mozambique. The ship had a history of maintenance problems. The shipping company didn’t have enough cash to cross the Suez Canal so they stopped in Beirut for additional cargo in 2013. Lebanese officials hold the ship in port for technical/safety violations and eventually seize its cargo in 2014. Since then, the cargo has sat in a warehouse despite safety warnings from customs officials.

There’s also a graphic showing that the yield from the explosion was an order of magnitude larger than the MOAB, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.

Seems to me like the whole situation stinks of opportunism - a massive shipment of explosives shows up in Beirut and the powers-that-be couldn’t figure out the best way to make it disappear. Or maybe it was pure incompetence?