In 2010, K+S KALI GmbH moved a transport volume of 14.3 million tonnes. Domestically, the focus was shifted to the more environmentally friendly rail and waterways, while road transport was limited to only what was most necessary. When it came to transporting goods overseas, our companies generally only used seagoing ships. In addition to cargo ships for the transport of dry cargo in bulk, so-called bulk carriers (termed seagoing bulk in the illustration), our products are also transported overseas by ship in containers. In terms of transport volumes, the ratio is about 2 to 1. In the 52,000 containers shipped, about half the volume that we transported as bulk goods was via 350 seagoing ships.
Road transport cannot be avoided completely. Where necessary, in 2010 a total of 130,000 lorries were used, which mainly served as means of delivery to inland ports and seaports. However, through the use of rail and inland waterways, it proved possible to minimise the use of lorries as means of transport.
Theoretically, in 2010 about 290,000 lorry loads (lorry equivalents) were avoided through the use of rail and internal waterways. Thus about 6,000 goods trains were dispatched with an average load of 1,000 tonnes. Each train corresponds to approximately 40 lorry loads and thus to a total of 240,000 lorry equivalents. 1,300 tonnes are transported with each shipment via internal waterways, which is equivalent to 50 lorry loads. It was thus possible to replace about 50,000 lorry equivalents with 1,000 inland waterway shipments.
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