BASF Declares Force Majeure on European Surfactants as Rhine Hits Record Low

BASF declared force majeure on certain surfactant products made in Europe on August 4, 2026, according to trade publication Chemical Week. The move follows weeks of falling water on the Rhine, which has cut barge capacity along the river and reduced the availability of the feedstocks that feed the group's German surfactant lines.

The river reached its lowest level ever recorded in the same period. The barge clearance level at the Kaub gauge, the shallowest stretch of the Middle Rhine and the reference point for traffic heading toward Frankfurt, Mannheim and Switzerland, dropped to 21 centimetres overnight into Tuesday August 4. That is the lowest reading since measurements began in 1880. The gauge recovered marginally on Tuesday morning, but German waterway forecasts point to a further fall toward 17 centimetres by Saturday August 8.

The decline has been building for weeks. Kaub was close to 40 centimetres in mid-July, then slipped to 27 centimetres on July 28 and 24 centimetres on August 3. Readings further upstream have been even lower, with the gauge near Worms touching 8 centimetres at points in late July. Barge operators have responded by cutting loads, and cargo capacity has fallen below 20 percent of normal on some sections. A tanker barge that usually carries around 1,200 tonnes past Duisburg has been limited to roughly a third of that volume.

BASF's Ludwigshafen complex, the largest integrated chemical site in the world, sits on the Rhine upstream of the Kaub bottleneck and depends on barge traffic for naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas and a long list of intermediates. Ethylene oxide produced at Ludwigshafen and Antwerp is the base for fatty alcohol ethoxylates and other nonionic surfactants sold into cleaning and personal care formulations. The oleochemical route relies on fatty alcohols derived from palm kernel and coconut oil, which arrive at North Sea ports and then travel inland by barge. Reduced draught therefore squeezes both the arrival of raw materials and the dispatch of finished volumes.

The declaration had been signalled. Speaking at the half-year results conference on July 29, chief executive Markus Kamieth said force majeure notices or product shortages in individual cases could not be ruled out, because Ludwigshafen and other plants sit along the Rhine and other European rivers. He confirmed higher logistics costs as volumes shift from vessels to rail and road, and pointed to specialised shallow draught ships the group now operates. At that stage BASF was not revising its full-year outlook.

Buyers exposed to the declaration include detergent and household cleaner producers, industrial and institutional cleaning suppliers, personal care manufacturers and crop protection formulators that use surfactants as adjuvants. BASF is one of the largest surfactant suppliers in Europe, so allocation across these segments is likely while the constraint lasts. No end date has been communicated.

The pressure extends across the sector. LyondellBasell declared force majeure on butadiene from its Wesseling site on July 16 after low water disrupted feedstock deliveries. Lanxess has set up a crisis management team for logistics. Evonik has reported an impact on production at its Marl Chemical Park. Shell has moved fuel deliveries from its Rhineland refinery onto rail and trucks.

Costs have climbed sharply. The benchmark freight rate for oil and liquid bulk barges from Rotterdam to German destinations south of Kaub rose around 400 percent in two months. The cost of moving diesel from Rotterdam to Karlsruhe is the highest since data collection began in 2009. The rail alternative is not fully available either, because the right bank Rhine line between Troisdorf and Wiesbaden has been closed in both directions since July 10 for engineering work scheduled to run until December.

The Kiel-based Institute for the World Economy estimates that persistently low Rhine levels could reduce German gross domestic product by 0.1 to 0.2 percent between July and September. The comparison with earlier episodes is unfavourable. Kaub bottomed near 25 centimetres in October 2018 and around 31 centimetres in August 2022. In 2026 the record was broken in the first days of August, well before the point at which the river usually reaches its seasonal minimum.

Relief looks unlikely in the short term. The heatwave has shifted from western Europe toward the southeast, and while isolated thunderstorms are possible from France through the Benelux countries into Germany, much of mainland Europe is forecast to stay dry. Dry soils absorb most of the rain that does fall before it reaches the river, and continued heat keeps evaporation high across the basin. Restoring unrestricted navigation would require several weeks of steady rainfall across the Alpine and upper Rhine catchment areas. Surfactant buyers should plan for allocation, low water surcharges and extended lead times into September.