Efforts underway to reopen Germany’s Mosel river to freight shipping traffic
Attempts will be made on Friday and over the weekend to reopen the river Mosel in west Germany on a limited scale to inland waterways freight shipping after an accident with a vessel damaged a lock, navigation authorities said on Friday.
Shipping was stopped on the river, an important transit route for grains and rapeseed between Germany and France, after an accident involving a passenger vessel on Wednesday damaged a lock at Sankt Aldegund between Koblenz and Trier.
Attempts are now starting to see if the lock can still be used for vessel transits on a limited scale after an initial assessment of damage, said a spokesperson for river navigation authority GDWS. The first test transits through the lock could be made over the weekend.
If this is not feasible, attempts are planned to reopen the lock with temporary water control barriers. But this would be a slower process than using the damaged lock, possibly with each ship needing around an hour to transit the lock.
About 50 inland waterways freighters are currently stranded on the river, called the Moselle in France.
First efforts will be concentrated on enabling the stranded ships to pass through the lock to reach their destinations. But the aim is to allow normal sailings to resume, the spokesperson said.
It is still not possible to say when the lock can be fully repaired.
A similar lock accident on the Mosel in December that halted shipping led futures exchange operator Euronext to suspend physical delivery to river ports in eastern France for its rapeseed futures.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan Editing by Mark Potter)
