Drought on the Rhine: shortage of gasoline in several stations in eastern France

Drought that is reducing the level of the Rhine is preventing ships from reaching the port of Strasbourg, leading to a shortage of gasoline in many stations in eastern France, according to official data. This Friday, August 14 in the morning, 14% of service stations in the Grand Est are considered “in difficulty”, according to the official website prix-carburants.gouv.fr, that is to say they were out of at least one fuel. At the national level, only 3% of stations are in this case.

But the disparity is significant between the west and the east of the large region, with Alsace and the Vosges being more affected: in Haut-Rhin, the unavailability rate is estimated between 25% and 50%, as in the neighboring department of Territoire de Belfort, according to the map published on the official website. Unleaded gasoline is much more affected than diesel, given the signs displayed by stations around Strasbourg.

“It's been going on for a week,” confides an employee of a TotalEnergies station in the Alsatian capital, out of SP98. According to him, the situation in his station is not yet dramatic, motorists can fall back on the SP95. But other stations offer neither fuel. The cause: the drought which has considerably reduced the level of the Rhine, through which gasoline consumed in eastern France usually passes, coming from seaports or refineries in northern Europe.

The great European river is almost cut off at Kaub, in western Germany, where the water level in the navigable channel fell to 130 cm on Monday, a level never seen before. As a result, boats are forced to reduce their loading, which has fallen to 350 tonnes for hydrocarbon vessels, instead of more than 1,500 tonnes in normal times, explains Jean-Laurent Kistler, development director of Voies navigables de France (VNF) in Strasbourg.

This type of problem has already occurred in the past, notably in 2018 and 2023, but not to the same extent, he emphasizes. “The precipitation deficit started very, very early in the year”, from the beginning of July, instead of the usual month of September, explains Jean-Laurent Kistler. Rain is expected from the weekend and next week, but the level of the Rhine should only regain around twenty centimeters, before falling again, he predicts.