Huge fire erupts in Beirut port, 36 days after deadly explosion

Beirut, Lebanon (PortSEurope) September 10, 2020 – A huge fire erupted in Lebanon’s largest port of Beirut in a warehouse storing cooking oil and then spread to a nearby pile of rubber tires, 36 days after a devastating explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port killed over 190 people, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed most of the port and entire neighbourhoods in the city. Interim general manager of the port, Bassem El-Kaissi, could not provide specifics about the fire that provoked panic in the port and city and is visible even from the Beirut’s airport. El-Kaissi claims that there are no casualties and that the army and firefighters from the city and the region are battling the flames. On September 3, the Lebanese army said that a further 4.35 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had been found in the port. The chemical has been found at the near the entrance gate number 9 of the Port of Beirut. Army engineers said they have destroyed it. A smaller fire had caught at Beirut's port on September 8, leading many to panic, though it was extinguished soon afterwards. Exactly a month ago, on August 10, the Beirut Container Terminal restarted operations, only six days after the two deadly explosions. The container terminal is located one kilometre away from the blast centre and has amazingly resumed operation after the storage areas were cleared of debris caused by the explosions. Twelve of the terminal’s 16 cranes are operational and two containerships docked at the terminal quayside and 420 containers were unloaded. Sara Haidar, Terminal Manager at Beirut Container Terminal Consortium (BCTC), said the container terminal represents 80% of overall cargo movement at the port. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport issued a tender for the concession of Beirut port container terminal with applications due March 17, 2020, and five consortia indicated interest. The tender is for 15 years and the result should have been announced by end-April. Following an earlier delay and the current Covid-19 virus crisis, an actual operational development might have to wait until end-2020, if not longer. The explosions will most likely add to a further delay on this process. Terminal concessionaire since 2005, Beirut Container Terminal Consortium (BCTC), has submitted a tender for renewal. It is bidding in a consortium with Lebanese-based International Port Management Beirut (IPMB), British-based Portia Management Services (PMS), and American-based Logistics and Port Management, Americas (LPMA). French shipping and logistics CMA CGM is bidding with Swiss-registered MSC. The Marseille-based CMA CGM has long-term relations with Lebanon. The group was founded by the late Franco-Lebanese Jacques Saadé, and CMA CGM is the leading customer of the container terminal of the port. Gulftainer is also interested and currently operates a container terminal in Lebanon’s second port, in Tripoli (North Lebanon), via a local subsidiary, Gulftainer Lebanon, part of the capital of which is also owned by CMA CGM. Gulftainer is a privately owned, independent port management and 3PL (third party logistics) company based in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and a leading port operator in the Middle East. The remaining two interested parties are Hong Kong-based China Merchants Port (CMPort) and Hong Kong-headquartered Hutchison Ports Holdings. The port of Beirut handles 60% of all Lebanon imports. The country, suffering from a prolonged economic crisis, the massive spread of the coronavirus and rampant corruption, relies heavily on imports, especially for food supplies. The two blasts at 15:00 GMT on August 4 flattened the harbour front and surrounding buildings. Seismologists measured the event, which blew out windows at the city’s international airport 9 km away, as the equivalent of a 3.3 magnitude earthquake. Some 300,000 people cannot live in their damaged homes. Many of those killed and injured were port and custom employees, and people working in the area or driving through during rush hour. The story behind this huge amount of explosive material rotting in a poorly secured and maintained warehouse in the port is like one coming from a bad film: it was on board a Moldova-flagged ship, owned by a Russian believed to be living in Cyprus, which was travelling from the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, to be delivered to Mozambique, but was abandoned in the port in 2013. China was the first to offer investments for the rebuilding of the port immediately after the blast. This is consistent with the Chinese policy of investing in ports that can help it export its huge amount of manufactured goods to Europe. “One Belt, One Road” – a simplified version of the “Silk Road and 21st Century New Maritime Silk Road” – concerns the China-led infrastructural investment project which aims to symbolically revive the corridor that united the East and the West. This initiative covers more than 60 countries and regions from Asia, through Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Africa. Not surprisingly, the United States followed suit – to counterbalance the Chinese influence in Lebanon and the region, but also to prevent Iran (with a key presence in Lebanon) from taking over the rebuilding and the consequent use of the strategic port. Another potential investor in the rebuilding of the port could be Russia, but it lacks money for such an investment. It would also be interesting to see whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aggressive foreign policy will lead to his country's involvement in the port's reconstruction. In August local sources reported that Kuwait is to rebuild Lebanon’s only large grain silo that was destroyed by the Beirut port explosion on August 4. The destruction of the silo at the port, the main entry point for food imports, means no government grain reserves for buyers. Kuwait’s ambassador to Lebanon, Abdulaal Al-Qenaie, said in comments to local radio VdL at the weekend that the silo was first built in 1969 with a Kuwaiti development loan. Plans for another grain silo in Lebanon’s second-largest port Tripoli were shelved years ago due to a lack of funding, a UN official, port official and regional grain expert told Reuters earlier this month. Humanitarian aid has poured into Lebanon. But foreign donors have made clear they will not bail out the state without reforms to tackle alleged government corruption and negligence. Copyright (C) PortSEurope. All Rights Reserved. 2020.

Huge fire erupts in Beirut port, 36 days after deadly explosion

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Huge fire erupts in Beirut port, 36 days after deadly explosion

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