Germany Studies Possible Limited Restart of Rhine Shipping After Sinking

German authorities are to study the possibility of introducing limited shipping to the River Rhine after a barge carrying sulfuric acid sank yesterday, closing Europe’s busiest waterway to traffic.

How long the waterway will be closed cannot yet be determined, the German water and shipping office said today in a statement. On condition that stabilization of the sunken vessel Waldhof can be assured, the local authorities will assess “how and in which form a reduced level of shipping traffic is possible at the site of the accident,” the office said.

Efforts to salvage the Waldhof, which was carrying acid for BASF SE, began last night and fire services today continued the search for two missing crew members, the office said. Monitoring of acid levels in the Rhine is being conducted, it said.

The Waldhof, operated by a unit of Lehnkering Holding GmbH, was bound for BASF’s facility in the Belgian port of Antwerp from its plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany. It went down at the Loreley cliffs, close to the town of St. Goarshausen, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the German city of Koblenz. The Rhine was closed for a stretch of about 30 kilometers between Bingen and Bad Salzig.

The Waldhof has a stainless steel double-hull designed to prevent its storage tanks from rupturing in case of an accident, Lehnkering said yesterday. BASF uses sulfuric acid, the largest byproduct of copper smelting, for intermediate products used to make plastics, as well as to dissolve metal ore and produce fertilizer.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Crawford in Berlin at acrawford6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net

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