Under the Mirabeau Bridge flows the Seine, and fewer and fewer commercial boats sail on the Seine.
The public establishment Haropa Port, which brings together the ports on the Seine, from Paris to its mouth at Le Havre, indicated traffic down 4.5% in 2023.
“We still did well on the financial plan”
with a turnover of 416 million euros, up 9.8%, welcomed CEO Stéphane Raison.
The leading grain port in Western Europe saw its solid bulk activity contract by 11%, due to a poorer harvest in 2023. Liquid bulk performed well since the volumes transited through the ports of the public establishment increased by 5%,
“despite a drop in the consumption of petroleum products in France”
, according to the Haropa press release.
The commissioning in Le Havre last September of a
“floating LNG storage and regasification unit”
greatly contributed to this.
A “year of resistance”
On the other hand, the flow of containers fell by 15%, with 2.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU, benchmark measurement for the sector) unloaded compared to 3.1 million in 2022.
“This decline is part of a decline global containerized volumes handled by the ports of the
European Northern Range, located in the Channel and the North Sea, explains Haropa.
“We are in a year of resistance compared to 2022
,” put Stéphane Raison into perspective, comparing the decline in its activity to other large ports in North-West Europe (between -6% and -12%).
River traffic on the Seine also fell by 5%, with 20.9 million tonnes transported.
The river modal share has nevertheless gained one point, to exceed 10%.
The modal share of rail remains particularly low compared to port facilities in other European countries, with less than 5%.
The port of Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine), the largest on the Seine in the Paris region, saw the volume of containers passing through its facilities increase by 1% to 130,895 TEU, a record.
Haropa Port plans to develop its river activity in 2024 with the start of work on the port of Seine-Métropole Ouest (PSMO) in Achères (Yvelines).
It is
“intended to accommodate building and public works activities”
.