“Danube must be regarded as a priority and were it not for the flow fluctuation, which is its biggest problem, the river could be Romania’s main access way into Europe,” says Daniel Lintes, general manager of harbor operator Socep Constanta.
Navigation issues on the Danube cause freight to reach Black Sea harbor of Constanta as much as two weeks late, which means time wasted and additional costs, he says.
“Danube needs constant depth throughout the year, or else freight carriers run into problems and barges don’t operate at capacity. Moreover, Hungary ships its grain by railway due to the navigation problems of the Danube.”
Danube flows over 1,075 kilometers in Romania, or 40% of its total navigable part, connecting the country directly to nine European countries. Romania has 20 fluvial harbors (Braila, Galati, Tulcea and Sulina of which can accommodate maritime vessels) and two canals, the Danube-Black Sea and the Poarta Alba-Midia connecting the river to the Black Sea and the Constanta harbor.
About 28 million tons of freight were loaded and unloaded in the fluvial harbors of Romania and only 119,000 passengers carried over the Danube in 2012, according to Transport Ministry data.
In comparison, Rhine, navigable over 750 kilometers sees 200 million tons of freight carried.
The navigation problems on the Danube in the last three years caused some of the grain shipments (some 500,000 tons a year) from Hungary that would normally travel to Constanta via the Danube to be sent via faster routes (Italy, Poland, the Rhine area). Other freight redirected from Constanta includes the coal going from Russia to thermoelectric power plants in Hungary and Austria, and the alumina used in aluminum production in Romania, according to market data.
Improvement of navigation conditions on the Danube requires dredging and signaling works, speeding up the projects intended to ensure proper navigation conditions on the river, and review of the fees charged by the harbor administrations, companies in the harbor and waterway transportation business say.
“Danube is the waterway connecting [Romania] to Central Europe and the sea, with the world, therefore. Fluvial transportation is cheaper than road or rail transportation and can be used for many types of freight, which matters for the economy,” says Bogdan Murgescu, an expert in economic history, who teaches at the University of Bucharest.
Fluvial transportation is a strategic sector in Romania, considering its fluvial harbors along with the maritime harbor of Constanta play an important part in its foreign trade and freight transit via Romania. Danube and Constanta are entry points to and from the Middle and Far East.
In times of drought that leads to shallow sections of the river (such as the segment between Calarasi and Braila), the depth reaches 1.2 to 1.4 meters, much lower than the European Commission’s minimum recommended depth of 2.5 meters.
The biggest navigation problems are in the Romanian-Bulgarian shared section of the river. The shallow waters in the Romanian-Bulgarian section are located in the area of the Batin and Belene cities. The Bulgarians have not allocated funds to maintaining suitable navigation conditions in the last few years, so the agreement between the two countries signed in 1954 needs to be renegotiated, companies in the harbor and waterway transportation business say.
The shallow sections of the Danube lead to ships being stuck. That was the case in July and August last year when almost 100 ships and a number of barges carrying ore, coal, grain and oil products could not move. In some cases, convoys were broken up into ships.
In the Calarasi-Braila section ships have to take a 120-kilometer detour using the Bala-Borcea distributaries to navigate the Calarasi-Cernavoda route, due to the shallow depths. This year, too, started with shallow depth in the Turnu Magurele-Zimnicea area, where 21 convoys were broken up so that they could pass through ship by ship.
There are 22 harbors on the fluvial Danube, and the most important are Drobeta Turnu Severin, Calafat, Giurgiu, Cernavoda and Galati. The harbor infrastructure is usually outdated and the harbors do not allow for efficient operation of fluvial ships, according to a document of the operational program on large infrastructure for 2014-2020.
Constanta harbor is the largest and is the main entrance and exit of freight to and from Romania.
“Constanta harbor is of national importance and it is one of the main harbors in Europe, as shown in the European transport strategy for 2014-2020. It can be developed with investment in infrastructure and activities that can be conducted there,” says Viorel Panait, general manager of harbor operator Comvex.
Maritime freight transportation was flat in 2010-2012 in Romania, while passenger traffic slightly increased from 23,000 people to 30,000 in 2012, according to Transport Ministry statistics.
Romanian sea harbors loaded/unloaded about 39 million tons of freight in 2012, compared with 61 million tons in Poland and 543 million tons in the Netherlands, the leading country in Europe by maritime freight transport, according to Eurostat data.
Constanta can be regarded as the Black Sea port of the landlocked countries along the Danube, that is Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia and Moldova.
The upgrade and development of the harbor infrastructure is funded via the SOP Transport program and via the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) approved by the EU for 2014-2020. Romania may get EUR1.3 billion for fluvial and rail transport via CEF in 2014-2020.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)