BASF Warns of Force Majeure as Rhine Water Levels Hit Record Low

Water levels on the Rhine have fallen to the lowest readings ever recorded at Kaub, the shallowest point on the Middle Rhine and the gate through which almost every barge moving between the North Sea ports and the industrial hinterland of Germany, France and Switzerland must pass. Germany's inland navigation agency WSV put the navigable depth at Kaub at roughly 25 cm on 31 July 2026, level with the all time low of 25.28 cm set on 22 October 2018, and it expects a fresh record of about 24 cm on Monday 3 August. The gauge read 28 cm on 29 July, so the river is still sliding.

The collapse has been building for months rather than weeks. Kaub averaged around 140 cm in late May, fell to roughly 106 cm by 22 June, dropped near 40 cm in mid July and has now halved again. The equivalent water level of 77 cm, the line below which barging on this stretch stops being economic, was broken in the first half of July. What makes 2026 unusual is the calendar. In 2018 the river did not reach its record until October, and the 2022 low of 31.48 cm arrived in mid August. This year the Rhine hit crisis depth weeks before the traditional low water season even begins.

The practical effect is a near shutdown of bulk volume. Tanker barges that carry about 1,200 tonnes past Duisburg were limited to roughly 460 tonnes through Kaub in mid July and can now move only about 250 tonnes. Vessels are frequently sailing 15 to 20 percent loaded or less. Argus reported on 27 July that most inland vessels could no longer pass the Kaub bottleneck at all, and described the Upper Rhine and the Main as effectively cut off from the Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp trading hub. Freight has repriced accordingly. Chartering a tanker barge from Rotterdam to Karlsruhe cost around 45 euros a tonne at the end of June, 60 to 70 euros a tonne in mid July and roughly 150 to 155 euros a tonne on 31 July, more than triple the pre drought level.

BASF has now put a formal risk marker on the situation. Speaking at the company's first half results presentation on 29 July, chief executive Markus Kamieth said it would be unwise to rule out force majeure declarations or shortages of individual products, because Ludwigshafen and other BASF plants sit directly on the Rhine and on other European rivers. He stressed that the tightly linked Verbund model amplifies the risk, since a single missing feedstock can ripple through connected units. BASF has not halted any production because of transport so far, and the company describes its logistics chain as stable for now, but it has declined to rule out customer impacts in the coming weeks if the dry pattern holds.

One producer has already moved past the warning stage. LyondellBasell declared force majeure on butadiene from its 170,000 tonne per year extraction unit at Wesseling in Germany, effective 16 July and running until further notice, after low water disrupted feedstock deliveries. Market participants expect customer allocations from August. The same bottleneck is squeezing naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas moving inland from North Sea refineries and terminals, which is where most German steam crackers get their feed. Buyers now face a choice between paying dead freight on part loaded barges or shifting to rail cars and trucks at a significant premium.

Mitigation is running on three tracks.

BASF has activated its multimodal contingency plan, chartering additional shallow draft vessels designed for extreme low water and moving volumes onto road and rail. The purpose built shallow draft tanker Stolt Ludwigshafen, commissioned as part of the resilience programme launched after the 2018 episode, is a central part of that capacity.

Operators are also splitting single cargoes across several part loaded barges, which keeps product moving but multiplies handling costs.

Chemical companies along the river are building inventory ahead of the usual August and September low water window and adjusting production schedules around delivery slots rather than demand.

The wider industrial exposure is significant. The Rhine carries coal, iron ore, grain, minerals, petrol, diesel and jet fuel as well as chemical feedstocks, and the modal shift toward road is landing on a European trucking market with very little spare contract capacity. In 2022 the same mechanism produced supply bottlenecks and production cuts across German industry. Analysts tracking the corridor argue that a few hundred unplanned full truckload spot requests per week inside the Rhine basin would be enough to push carrier rejection rates and spot rates higher across Central and Western Europe.

Recovery depends entirely on rainfall in the Alpine and upper Rhine catchments, and the forecast picture is mixed. Some models point to meaningful rain across parts of Germany in the first week of August, while others show a heat dome rebuilding over Central Europe with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius and negligible precipitation. Restoring unrestricted navigation would require weeks of sustained rain rather than isolated thunderstorms. Researchers assessing the 2026 European summer describe it as one of the most significant combined heat and drought events on record for the continent, with rainfall deficits running from Portugal to southern Finland since April.

Structural fixes exist but are slow. German authorities are advancing a project to deepen the shipping channel by 20 centimetres at the worst Middle Rhine bottlenecks between Mainz and St Goar, including Kaub. That work will not affect this summer. For the next several weeks the realistic planning assumption for chemical, fuel and bulk shippers on the corridor is continued draft restrictions, elevated low water surcharges and a rising probability that more force majeure notices follow the LyondellBasell declaration.