Rhine’s falling water levels slash cargo limits for oil barges

Declining water levels on the Rhine River are severely restricting the amount of oil that barges can carry to parts of inland Europe.

A barge loading middle distillate — an umbrella term for petroleum products including road diesel and jet fuel — on Thursday will only be able to take a little more than half of its capacity upstream beyond the key waypoint of Kaub, Germany, according to shipbroker Riverlake. 

“Water levels on the Rhine will continue to fall until the middle of next week,” Riverlake said in a report. After that, “there is a chance they will briefly rise again, but at least stabilize.”

A barge that can normally haul as much as 2,500 tons of middle distillate is restricted to loading about 1,360 tons if heading past Kaub, according to the shipbroker. That level could drop as low as 1,200, it said. 

Water levels on the Rhine — one of Europe’s most vital waterways for the transport of goods — have periodically dropped in recent years amid the effects of climate change. In 2022, a total 292 million tons of cargo was carried along the river, according to the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine. 

Two years ago, the measured water level at Kaub — which is not the actual depth of the river — fell as low as 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), causing significant disruption for shippers. The water level is forecast to fall as low as 108 centimeters early on Sunday morning, according to a forecast from Germany’s Federal Institute of Hydrology.