From Bloomberg via gCaptain, February 24:
Europe’s Parched Lifeline Flashes Trade Disruption Warning
Shallow waters on the Rhine are disrupting barge traffic and forcing up the cost of shipping, an early indicator the continent may need to brace for a redux of the seismic economic shock caused by last year’s drought.
At Kaub, a key waypoint in western Germany, the river-measure is the lowest it’s been this time of year since 2017. Any barges planning on hauling diesel further into inland Europe are restricted to loading at about half-capacity. Take on a full cargo, and the vessel will sit too low in the channel.
“For the time of year, it’s quite bad,” said Mitchell van der Hoeven, a ship broker at Riverlake, which handles barging on the continent’s inland waterways. “We might get into a situation that we had last summer, where production will need to be cut or stopped.”
An atypically mild winter and concurrent lack of precipitation are having consequences across Europe, particularly for farmers and energy producers. Much of France and the southern UK has had less than a quarter of normal rainfall in the past 30 days, and some growers are trimming plantings of potatoes, carrots, parsnips and onions because there may not be enough water to irrigate them in the coming months.
“I can’t take that risk,” said Andrew Blenkiron, a farmer in Suffolk, England, who’s cutting the acreage for those crops by a quarter. December and January rainfall totaled about half the average, and just 3 millimeters (0.1 inches) fell so far in February....
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