The Board of Merchant Shipping belonging to the Central Government has guaranteed that the cargo on MV Cheshire poses no threat to dock handlers nor the environment in general.

The ship’s Port of Call Declaration (DUE) states that it is carrying nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK), which are considered non-dangerous cargoes and are used in fertiliser, especially for olive trees.

The Board states that the ship is not carrying ammonia nitrate as previously reported.

The reason that Motril Port was chosen is because the installations have a warehouse for storing this kind of product, one which the owner of the cargo has used for several years.

Finally, NPK is the ratio of these three macro-nutrients used in fertiliser: the first figure is for nitrogen, the second for phosphorus and the third for potassium; thus fertilizer is listed as 20-5-5 has four times more nitrogen in it than phosphorus and potassium. If a fertilizer is 10-0-0, then it only contains nitrogen.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)