Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Germany’s Rhine River will stay shut to shipping for a minimum of three days as authorities work to secure a sunken barge, stranding hundreds of vessels on Europe’s busiest inland shipping route.
The river will remain closed between Koblenz and Mainz, in western Germany, said Uwe Rindsfuesser, a spokesman for the Landkreis Rhein-Lahn, a local administrative authority. High water levels, which closed the Rhine for days before the accident on Jan. 13, are hampering efforts to reopen the link.
“Customers are already looking for alternative ways to ship their goods,” said Joachim Hessler, operations manager at Maintank Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH, which ships oil products such as jet fuel and diesel. “It isn’t good for the barge business.”
The Rhine runs to Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest port, allowing shipment of goods from grain to gasoline and steel. The river annually handles about 170 million metric tons of goods, according to Bundesverband der Deutschen Binnenschiffahrt e.V., the country’s inland shipping association.
Local authorities had planned to allow a handful of barges to start moving pass the accident site yesterday on a trial basis. This plan has had to be shelved because the sunken vessel will slip into a 5-meter (16-feet) deep ditch, which formed along the boat’s side since the accident, Rindsfuesser said.
The sunken barge, called the Waldhof, was on its way to BASF SE’s plant in Antwerp, Belgium, from Ludwigshafen, Germany, with a cargo of sulfuric acid when the accident occurred. Four cranes are being brought in to move the Waldhof.
Barge clearance levels at Koblenz rose to 741 centimeters on Jan. 11, the highest level in more than four years, according to data on Bloomberg. The clearance level at that point is 685 centimeters today, the data show.