Logistics

物流系統(tǒng)

Feeling the AdBlues

柴油機尾氣處理液短缺

A series of shortages threatens Europe’s supply chains

一系列的物資短缺對歐洲供應(yīng)鏈造成威脅

?adblue的意思是柴油機尾氣處理液，也稱為汽車環(huán)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.

?

歐盟國際道路運輸聯(lián)盟（IRU）的Raluca Marian說："公路對歐洲幾乎所有東西的運輸都至關(guān)重要。歐盟所有貨物中的四分之三是通過卡車運輸?shù)?。如果歐盟620萬輛重型車輛（HDV）中的一半無法運作，超市貨架將在幾天內(nèi)空空如也，依賴于救護車和消防車的基礎(chǔ)服務(wù)將崩潰。如果AdBlue（一種尿素、去離子水混合物，可以中和柴油發(fā)動機的一氧化氮排放）的庫存耗盡，這種情況就會發(fā)生。多達400萬輛的歐洲貨車在沒有AdBlue的情況下，行駛幾公里就會拋錨。

?

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，德國東部的一家化學品公司SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz因為天然氣價格過高而停止生產(chǎn)，該公司生產(chǎn)的AdBlue占全國供應(yīng)量的40%。該公司每月?lián)p失1億歐元（1億美元）。9月，在天然氣價格稍有回落后，SKW重啟45%產(chǎn)能，但損失已經(jīng)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.

?

剩下的兩個大生產(chǎn)商--德國的巴斯夫和挪威的亞拉—因供應(yīng)受限和成本上升，將一升AdBlue的價格從2021年8月時的17歐分推高到1.20歐元。物流集團Netzwerk Logistik Mitteldeutschland（德國中部物流網(wǎng)絡(luò)）的主席在給德國經(jīng)濟部長Robert Habeck和交通部長Volker Wissing的一封公開信中表示，對于一個擁有幾百輛卡車的運輸公司來說，這意味著每年要增加50萬歐元的成本。

?

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短缺是對德國卡車運輸業(yè)的最新打擊，該行業(yè)已經(jīng)受到高油價和卡車司機匱乏的影響。"德國缺少10萬名卡車司機，"運輸業(yè)協(xié)會BGL的負責人Dirk Engelhardt擔心道。IRU說，在整個歐洲，10%的職位空缺沒有得到填補，這相當于42.5萬人。每年又有數(shù)萬名歐洲卡車司機退休，但大多數(shù)崗位都無人接班。不適的工作條件以及難以平衡的工作與家庭的關(guān)系，使年輕人和婦女（他們只占歐洲卡車司機的3%）不愿意做卡車司機。

?

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.

?

瑪麗安女士希望歐盟委員會意識到AdBlue是 "必需產(chǎn)品，沒有它物流鏈就會停止"。這樣的重視可以要求對這種化學品在歐盟范圍內(nèi)的可用性進行監(jiān)測。她還建議建立官方AdBlue儲備。這似乎是一個希望不大的嘗試。但即使事情沒有按照瑪麗安女士的設(shè)想發(fā)展，一旦汽油價格停止上漲，緩解能源危機的政府計劃在歐盟各地生效，AdBlue的短缺可能會得到緩解。但司機的短缺問題更難解決。第一步是使成為一名司機變得更加容易和便宜：在德國獲得重型汽車執(zhí)照需要三年時間，費用高達13,000歐元，這對大多數(shù)求職者來說是一個大障礙。該考試還沒有烏克蘭語或土耳其語版本，而這些是外來移民的語言。如果沒有這些障礙，他們可能會被該職業(yè)的體面報酬所吸引。