Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The lowest water levels in seven years on the Danube River has curbed shipping on the central European waterway, according to Via Donau, an Austrian government monitoring agency.

The river is the shallowest for November since 2004, reducing shipping to 25 percent of its normal capacity, spokeswoman Bettina Pepek said today by phone from Vienna.

The river was 218 centimeters (86 inches) deep today at Wildungsmauer, near Austria’s border with Slovakia, compared with 321 centimeters a year earlier, Via Donau’s data show.

Shipments on the Austrian section of the river totaled 11.1 million metric tons last year, according to Via Donau. Ore and scrap metal accounted for 31 percent of the goods, petroleum products 19.5 percent, and agricultural products 16.2 percent, according to the agency’s annual report.

--Editors: John Deane, Nicholas Larkin

To contact the reporter on this story: Isaac Arnsdorf in London at iarnsdorf@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net