Lack of Water in Europe’s Most Important River Starts to Bite

Oil and chemical tanker Manouk II sails past dry banks on the Rhine River near Assmanshausen, Germany, on Thursday, July 14, 2022. A heatwave has sent levels on parts of the river, key for shipping everything from coal to oil, to the lowest in at least 15 years on a seasonal basis. , Bloomberg

Jack Wittels and Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg News

Jul 15, 2022

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(Bloomberg) -- The flow of commodities to inland Europe is starting to buckle as water levels on the Rhine river continue to fall. 

The lack of water is contributing to oil product supply problems in Switzerland and preventing at least two power plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need. What’s more, the continent’s sizzling summer temperatures are forecast to climb even higher in the coming week.

The roughly 800-mile (1,288-kilometer) Rhine river runs from Switzerland to the North Sea and is used to transport tens of millions of tons of commodities through inland Europe. Water levels are at their lowest for the time of year since at least 2007, according to government data, limiting how much fuel, coal and other vital cargo that barges can carry up and down the river.

This, coupled with capacity issues on German railways, has meant that Switzerland is struggling with supplies of oil products, mainly diesel/heating oil, according to the landlocked country’s organization for fuel importers. 

Meanwhile, power plants at Mannheim and Karlsruhe in Germany, operated by Grosskraftwerk Mannheim AG and EnBW AG, have been struggling to source coal because of the shallow water -- just as the country frets that Russia won’t restart flows on a key gas pipeline. The companies said their generation operations aren’t currently affected.

Because of the tight coal market and low Rhine levels making it hard to deliver the fuel, only 65% of Germany’s coal capacity will be available in coming months, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights analyst Sabrina Kernbichler.

See also: Europe Is Frying in Devastating Heat, Yet Is Burning More Coal

Germany also imports oil products up the Rhine, including fuel and heating oil. There’s currently no shortage of gasoline or diesel in the country, according to Herbert Rabl, spokesman for Tankstellen-Interessenverband e.V., which represents fuel station leaseholders and owners in Germany.

Shell -- which owns the Wesseling and Godorf refineries along the Rhine -- is monitoring the situation, according to a spokesperson.

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