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I worked for Monsanto 40 years ago at a plant that made ammonium nitrate. Most of it was used for fertilizer but some was sent to another facility to mix it with fuel oil to make ANFO explosives. Ammonium nitrate, on its own, will not explode. The explosion of the ship (loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer), that was parked at the dock by the Monsanto Texas City Plant back in 1947, occurred because the holds were closed up when a fire started in one of the holds. The thinking was that closing the holds would put out the fire but ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer. The fire did not go out and the ship turned into a huge bomb that killed over 600 people. Would be interesting to find out how the ammonium nitrate was detonated in Beirut.