Traffic in the ports of Le Havre, Paris and Rouen still below 2019 levels
Posted Jan 28, 2022, 5:59 PMUpdated on Jan 28, 2022 at 6:03 p.m.
For its first financial year marked by the final merger of the three ports of Le Havre, Rouen and the Paris region, a merger materialized last June, Haropa Port shows a rebound in its maritime traffic in 2021, although still down compared to 2019 .
In total, the establishment which extends from the piers of Le Havre and runs on the Seine and the Marne beyond Paris, has a total maritime traffic of 83.6 million tonnes, up 12% over one year, with container traffic up 28%, liquid bulk up 6% and dry bulk down 4%. This is in addition to river traffic in Ile-de-France, which is up 4% annually, driven by containers and construction materials and rubble.
While the three components of Haropa have implemented a common pricing policy and are discussing new industrial or logistics locations, the turnover will be consolidated later.
Avoid losing market share
“The good results validate the relevance of the model, our ports benefit from the critical size, and Haropa will keep its place among the very large European ports”, welcomes Daniel Havis, chairman of the supervisory board. However, much remains to be done to sustainably gain market share – or avoid losing it – against the giants of the “northern range”. On the one hand, total maritime traffic at 83.6 million tonnes is still significantly down on the 2019 level (89.9 million tonnes).
On the other hand, Le Havre hosted “stopovers from the oversaturated ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp due to port congestion in the North range”, underlines the new staff. Either a “bonus” of 90 additional ships handled last year in Le Havre, but nothing says that these diversions will continue when the supply chain will be less disrupted. Even hampered by inland logistics, Antwerp alone handled nearly 240 million tonnes of goods last year, up 3.8%, with a volume of containers four times greater (12 million TEUs ) than that of the leading French port and its 3.1 million “boxes”.
MSC will strengthen in Le Havre
Nevertheless, the public port establishment can now foresee the future, with an envelope of 1.45 billion euros over the period 2020/2027, for its investments. Particularly in the ecological transition, with the electrification of berths or the start of offshore wind power, embodied by the Siemens Gamesa factory. Among shipowners, Haropa is in advanced discussions with TIL, the handling operator of the new world leader in shipping MSC, to soon dock its giant ships under construction, each with 24,000 containers, according to Stéphane Raison, chairman of the board. This has led to significant modifications to the port equipment in place.
As for the closure since April of the historic EDF coal-fired power station, ideally located on the Norman port, Stéphane Raison hopes to sign “a partnership agreement” with the public group, in particular for the land component, but the deconstruction and depollution of the Le Havre site should take nearly 10 years.