Introduction "Emergency Fuel Surcharge"

Dear customers and business partners,

We are writing to inform you about the current dramatic developments in fuel prices. As a result, further adjustments to freight rates are unfortunately unavoidable, at least temporarily.

After fuel prices already rose sharply in January of this year, the trend has accelerated dramatically since the start of the armed conflict in the Middle East.

While gross diesel prices were still at €1.72/liter at the beginning of February, they had already reached €2.19/liter by March 10. This represents a 27% increase in costs, with fuel costs accounting for between 25% and 30% of freight costs, depending on the area of operation.

The mechanism established by the diesel floater models no longer adequately covers these enormous price jumps. We are therefore obliged to levy a temporary surcharge to bridge and compensate for the current cost situation.

At the beginning of March, this led to a massive increase in fuel purchasing costs, and unfortunately, passing on or sharing these costs with effect from March 16, 2026 is now the logical consequence. Until further notice, we will therefore introduce the “Emergency Fuel Surcharge” and calculate and levy it as follows:

We have calculated the amount of the “Emergency Fuel Surcharge” based on the increase in fuel prices between the beginning of February (1.72 euros/liter) and March 10 (€2.19/liter). ). Based on a fuel cost share of 27.5%, this results in a surcharge of 8% for the period from March 16, 2026, to March 22, 2026. The surcharge will be shown separately as an “Emergency Fuel Surcharge” on our invoices.