外刊听读| 经济学人 欧洲物流危机

Logistics

物流系统

Feeling the AdBlues

柴油机尾气处理液短缺

A series of shortages threatens Europe’s supply chains

一系列的物资短缺对欧洲供应链造成威胁

 adblue的意思是柴油机尾气处理液，也称为汽车环保尿素。

1 “LORRIES ARE vital for the transport of almost everything in Europe,” says Raluca Marian of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) in Brussels. Three-quarters of all goods in the EU travel by lorry. If half the bloc’s 6.2m heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) cannot function, supermarket shelves will be empty within days and essential services reliant on ambulances and fire engines will break down. That could happen if stocks of AdBlue, a mix of urea and deionised water that neutralises nitric-oxide emissions from diesel engines, are depleted. As many as 4m European lorries are programmed to stop after a few kilometres without AdBlue.

 

欧盟国际道路运输联盟（IRU）的Raluca Marian说："公路对欧洲几乎所有东西的运输都至关重要。欧盟所有货物中的四分之三是通过卡车运输的。如果欧盟620万辆重型车辆（HDV）中的一半无法运作，超市货架将在几天内空空如也，依赖于救护车和消防车的基础服务将崩溃。如果AdBlue（一种尿素、去离子水混合物，可以中和柴油发动机的一氧化氮排放）的库存耗尽，这种情况就会发生。多达400万辆的欧洲货车在没有AdBlue的情况下，行驶几公里就会抛锚。

 

2 In August SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, a chemicals company in eastern Germany that makes about 40% of the country’s supply of AdBlue, stopped production because of exorbitant gas prices. The firm said it was losing €100m ($100m) a month. In September SKW restarted 45% of its production after gas prices came down a bit. But the damage was done.

 

8月，德国东部的一家化学品公司SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz因为天然气价格过高而停止生产，该公司生产的AdBlue占全国供应量的40%。该公司每月损失1亿欧元（1亿美元）。9月，在天然气价格稍有回落后，SKW重启45%产能，但损失已经造成了。

 

3 Constrained supply and higher costs for the two remaining big producers, BASF of Germany and Yara of Norway, pushed the price of a litre of AdBlue to €1.20, up from just 17 cents in August 2021. In an open letter to Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, and Volker Wissing, the transport minister, the chairman of Netzwerk Logistik Mitteldeutschland, a logistics group, lamented that for a haulage firm with a few hundred lorries this translates to extra annual costs of €500,000.

 

剩下的两个大生产商--德国的巴斯夫和挪威的亚拉—因供应受限和成本上升，将一升AdBlue的价格从2021年8月时的17欧分推高到1.20欧元。物流集团Netzwerk Logistik Mitteldeutschland（德国中部物流网络）的主席在给德国经济部长Robert Habeck和交通部长Volker Wissing的一封公开信中表示，对于一个拥有几百辆卡车的运输公司来说，这意味着每年要增加50万欧元的成本。

 

4 The shortage of AdBlue is the latest blow to German trucking, which is already suffering from high fuel prices and a dearth of truckers. “We are short of 100,000 lorry drivers in Germany,” worries Dirk Engelhardt, head of the BGL, a haulage-industry association. Across Europe 10% of vacancies are unfilled, says the IRU, equivalent to 425,000 people. Most of the tens of thousands of European truckers who retire every year are not replaced. Off-putting working conditions and the difficulty of combining the job with stable family life is discouraging youngsters and women (who make up just 3% of lorry drivers in Europe) from taking the wheel.

 

AdBlue短缺是对德国卡车运输业的最新打击，该行业已经受到高油价和卡车司机匮乏的影响。"德国缺少10万名卡车司机，"运输业协会BGL的负责人Dirk Engelhardt担心道。IRU说，在整个欧洲，10%的职位空缺没有得到填补，这相当于42.5万人。每年又有数万名欧洲卡车司机退休，但大多数岗位都无人接班。不适的工作条件以及难以平衡的工作与家庭的关系，使年轻人和妇女（他们只占欧洲卡车司机的3%）不愿意做卡车司机。

 

5 Ms Marian wants the European Commission to recognise AdBlue as an “essential product without which logistics chains would stop”. Such a designation could require the chemical’s EU-wide availability to be monitored. She also suggests creating official AdBlue reserves. This seems like a long shot. But even if Ms Marian does not get her way, the shortage of AdBlue may ease once gas-price brakes and other government schemes to mitigate the energy crisis enter into force around the EU. The shortage of drivers will be harder to solve. A first step would be to make becoming a driver easier and cheaper: getting an HDV licence in Germany takes three years and costs up to €13,000, a big hurdle for most jobseekers. The exam is not available in Ukrainian or Turkish, languages spoken by immigrants who might otherwise be tempted by the profession’s decent pay.

 

玛丽安女士希望欧盟委员会意识到AdBlue是 "必需产品，没有它物流链就会停止"。这样的重视可以要求对这种化学品在欧盟范围内的可用性进行监测。她还建议建立官方AdBlue储备。这似乎是一个希望不大的尝试。但即使事情没有按照玛丽安女士的设想发展，一旦汽油价格停止上涨，缓解能源危机的政府计划在欧盟各地生效，AdBlue的短缺可能会得到缓解。但司机的短缺问题更难解决。第一步是使成为一名司机变得更加容易和便宜：在德国获得重型汽车执照需要三年时间，费用高达13,000欧元，这对大多数求职者来说是一个大障碍。该考试还没有乌克兰语或土耳其语版本，而这些是外来移民的语言。如果没有这些障碍，他们可能会被该职业的体面报酬所吸引。