Analyst: Drought Threatens Danube Navigation Routes for Wheat Exports, Coal Imports

Danube River (BetaPhoto/Dragan Gojic)

A recent drought has not only caused low water levels and affected electricity production, but has also threatened navigation routes, the Danube River in particular, as a lion’s share of wheat exports and coal imports depend on it, Zarko Galetin, an agricultural economist, said on Aug. 17.

Galetin said in an interview with N1 TV that due to the drought, 16 power plants in Serbia, accounting for 38 percent of total production, had reduced their output by nearly a third. “If the drought continues, all scenarios are possible. All navigation routes along the Danube might be blocked, and we can expect enormous problems,” Galetin said.

The analyst explained that the upstream of the river was used to get coal into the country, and the downstream to import iron and export wheat, using Romania’s Port of Constanta.

“Over a million tons of goods, including wheat and corn, are transported via the Constanta port. Nearly one half of corn exports and a third of wheat travel through Constanta. The Smederevska Zelezara iron casting complex depends on iron exports from Ukraine,” Galetin said, adding that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine “the price of transport went up 50 percent, because goods are transported to the Black Sea, which is a high-risk area.”