Lower Rhine water levels lead to logistical problems – Bloomberg

The Rhine water level, the most important river for Europe’s transport industry, has dropped to a new minimum in its key section, causing problems with the transportation of fuel and other goods. This is reported by the Interfax-Ukraine agency with the reference to Bloomberg.

“Currently, water levels in the middle and lower flows of the Rhine are extremely low for this time of year,” the German Waterways and Shipping Authority (WSA) said in a statement.

The water level in the area of ​​Kauba, a particularly shallow place west of Frankfurt, briefly dropped to 30 cm on Monday. According to the authorities, the water level will fluctuate during the week in the range of 31-33 cm. The WSA noted that this phenomenon was caused by a lack of precipitation. According to Bloomberg, the water level in Kauba was such low in the summer of 1990 last time.

According to the publication, this year approximately 60% of the EU and Britain’s territory will suffer the effects of drought, which is exacerbated by abnormal heat. Countries such as France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands are facing water shortages. Such conditions negatively affect agriculture, energy and river shipping.

As GMK Center reported earlier, the record heat in Europe and lack of precipitation on the continent caused a sharp drop in water levels in the Rhine, that hinders shipping. This has led to massively strained logistics in shipping commodities across Europe, increased costs and a deterioration in the supply of materials, in particular, transportation of steel and scrap.

Also, draft vessels loading of Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company (UDP) decreased from 2.1 m to 1.8 m, and the loading itself – from 1.5-1.6 thousand tons to 1 thousand tons due to the falling water level because of the abnormal heat in the Danube region.