RheinCargo Limits Volume Losses During the Corona Crisis

The logistics service provider RheinCargo GmbH & Co. KG has managed to stabilize itself in the year of Corona 2020 despite the partly dramatic market situation. Thanks to the efficient connection of the transport modes of waterways and rail, the company was able to limit volume declines due to COVID and thus withstand the crisis. The total volume of goods transported in the ports and on the rail amounted to 41 million tons.

(Neuss/Cologne) The year 2020 was, as is well known, marked by the global pandemic. From the end of February, the negative impacts on the transport and logistics industry quickly became visible, and companies had to cope with significant declines. With 41 million tons of goods handled and transported in the entire year of 2020, RheinCargo was about 11.5 percent below the previous year’s figure. In 2019, RheinCargo had still moved a total of 46.3 million tons.

Numbers Acceptable Given the Crisis

“This decline is very bitter and was, of course, not planned. However, the numbers are in a range that we could manage given the scale of the global crisis. Our combination of port logistics and freight rail has once again helped us in dealing with the consequences of the pandemic,” summarize the RheinCargo managing directors Wolfgang Birlin (freight rail) and Jan Sönke Eckel (ports). The port division recorded a decline of 4.6 percent in ship-side handling, a moderate figure compared to other inland port locations. In total, 15.25 million tons were handled in the RheinCargo ports in Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Neuss in 2020. Including land-side handling, the total goods volume in the ports was 22.4 million tons compared to 24.3 million tons in 2019. “The crisis has not left any company in the industry unscathed. During the first lockdown in spring, entire industries, such as automobile manufacturers, completely halted their production. Therefore, the handling from these sectors also decreased in the annual balance,” explains Jan Sönke Eckel. The managing director is all the more pleased that goods groups such as building materials/recycling, chemical products, and the agricultural and feed sector performed even better in 2020 than in the previous year.

Industrial and Factory Rail Sector Could Gain

The RheinCargo rail division achieved a transport volume of 18.63 million tons in the past year compared to 21.87 million tons in the previous year. Pandemic-related volume losses occurred particularly in the area of mineral oil and kerosene transports. It was encouraging in 2020 that the RheinCargo business unit “factory and industrial railways” was even able to grow against the trend. By now, RheinCargo provides services for infrastructures, railway operations, or additional activities such as loading for factory and industrial railway customers from various sectors in North Rhine-Westphalia and Southwest Germany. “We see further growth potential for RheinCargo across Germany in the coming years,” says Wolfgang Birlin. For 2021, the two RheinCargo managing directors do not dare to make a forecast given the unpredictability of the pandemic, except: “As bad as 2020 was: The year has shown that our company can also prove itself in a historical crisis. A key to this is the broad goods portfolio of RheinCargo, which will continue to be an essential building block for our success in the future.”
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