Mainly on the Elbe River - Central Europe

Chart 14 - Waterway import of the Czech Republic (thousands of tons)
2000 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Total
Chemical substances, preparations, products
482 299 364 336 248 173
and synthetic fibre; rubber and plastic products;
atomic fuel
44 66 46 12 4 11
Source: The transportation yearbook 2008
The problem of transport yearbooks is that data are gathered only on domestic transporters and
only on public ports. The corporation port Lovochemie (the largest producer of fertilizers in the CR)
in Lovosice is managed by German vessel operators to a high degree. Therefore in average, there
are approx. 3.000 tons of imports and 65.000 tons of exports missing in the Transportation
yearbook data (for the Lovosice port statistics, Inc. see the chapter 2.5.1.2) 5 .
If the volumes of the foreign vessel operators are calculated, the output changes considerably:
Export of chemicals: approx. 105 thousands tons → 36 % of the total transported volume of all
vessel operators in all commodities.
Import of chemicals: approx. 14 thousands tons → 5 % of the total transported volume of all
vessel operators in all commodities.
The transported volumes of a single chemical factory are significant. If the accessibility
(especially in terms of time) of other chemical industries improved, it is assumed that the volume of
chemicals transported by waterways would rapidly grow.
2.3.3 Germany
The role of the chemical industry is crucial in German economy. In 2008, the German chemical
industry ranked fourth in the list of worldwide production of chemicals and first in Europe focusing
its production on basic and consumption products. The major produced commodities are plastics,
synthetic fibers and varnish for industrial commodities, consumption products including
pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and cleaning products for end-consumers.
5 CityPlan findings
A feasibility study for “Improvement of Conditions for the River Transport in Central Europe (mainly on the Elbe
River)“ realized within the ChemLog project 35