22


FRANcE


As might be expected, Le Havre is the biggest European port for wines and spirits, handling around 700 million bottles a year. It’s also the top European port for luxury goods and has some of the best security in the business, claims Cornede. There has been a progressive


upturn in Le Havre’s container trade, of 8% by the end of September to 1.8m teu. This in fact almost cancels out the drop in traffic in 2009 and the port is close to levels seen in the boom year of 2008. Along with chemicals, which


The big ship revolution is happening too in the port of Le Havre, France’s northern container gateway. Commercial and marketing director Hervé Cornede expects to welcome 100 vessels of around 10,000teu by the end of the year. “Most of the Far East to Europe operators are now using such vessels including CMA GM, Maersk, UASC and China Shipping, and there is a dedicated berth for them – so


we are ready to say welcome to the giants.” Already in the top four European container ports, Cornede nevertheless believes that Le Havre is capable of even greater things. “We see ourselves not as a Chelsea, but perhaps an Arsenal” - a port that has to box clever to make its way even further up the rankings. China dominates Le Havre’s container trade, with 60% of


the total, followed a long way behind by the US and Canada with 25%, albeit better-balanced than the China trade which is overwhelmingly import-biased. “When we import three containers from China, we export only one,” points out Cornede. But there are also growing volumes from India and Brazil, adds Cornede. “They’re not a massive trade at the moment, but they are among the fastest growing.”


Rail still in the red but a corner has been turned


Now regrouped as SNCF Geodis, the logistics activities of France’s state-owned rail operator are starting to turn the corner. It is no secret that President Nicolas Sarkozy has enviously eyed the domination of Europe’s rail-based logistics market by Germany’s DB Schenker group, and wants SNCF to similarly catapult itself onto the international stage. Turnover for the whole


division in the first nine months of the year was up 23.5% on the corresponding period of 2009, although this was largely buoyed by a number of strategic acquisitions such as Veolia Freight and ITL Benelux. No figures were given for the performance of the existing rail freight division, but SNCF Geodis chief executive Pierre Blayau has warned that


he expects Fret SNCF to remain heavily in the red this year. Last year, the group embarked


on a €1 billion restructuring plan comprising various operational changes. But Blayau told French media this had yet to have any impact on the division’s structural costs, and the financial performance continued to lag the commercial performance. Operating losses in the


current year are likely to be slightly lower than the €500 million in 2009, but Blayau added they would still probably be significant. “Reaching break- even in 2013 continues to be my objective,” he commented. The biggest reform will be in the single wagon business, which generates some three-quarters of Fret SNCF’s losses.


Dunkerque rules the rails


Dunkerque has become the first port in France to operate and maintain its rail infrastructure. Dunkerque-Port and its service company Europorte Services, have drawn up a set of operating safety rules and its rail network will be operated by Europorte Services as of 21 December.


SNCF Geodis has also taken operational control of Lorry Rail, which operates a daily rail service carrying unaccompanied semi- trailers between Luxembourg and Perpignan, by raising its stake from 12.5% to over 50%. Lorry Rail is believed to have lost heavily since it was set up in 2007, but SNCF Geodis believes there is a future for such services as growing environmental legislation imposes bigger costs on road trucking. Although the European


market for rail services is still far from fully open, SNCF is already facing pressure from foreign competitors. At the Port of La Rochelle, the state operator found itself replaced by DB Schenker subsidiary ECR in operating a new local service.


were up 32% as of late July to 1.1m tonnes, there has also been a very sharp increase in imported cars at the port’s ro ro terminal, driven by a big increase in volumes from Korea. Overall container volumes were up 7%. Encouraging though these


figures are, it is still too early to say whether the recession has passed, says Cornede. “Most economists’ predictions seem to be a bit down the drain, so we’re cautious and since September the whole economy has been very flat, although there was a big increase in January.” Logistics has been a bright spot in Le Havre. French-owned


forwarder SDV has set up a large, 15,000sqm distribution centre in the port, which has plenty of space for further such developments. Rail traffic to and from the


port has also bucked the trend, increasing by 5%. Shuttle container trains operate from Le Havre to all major centres in France, along with other countries such as Italy and Germany. “Rail traffic increased in a difficult year and now our objective is to develop new shuttle services to Germany and, indeed, to increase our hinterland to include Switzerland.” But for Cornede, the real rising


star is waterway transport. “We have developed, in conjunction with the port of Paris, a network of terminals along the Seine.” And while traffic between Le Havre and Paris is modest compared with the Rhine, it is growing and now accounts for around 20% of what the port sends towards the French capital. “We’re also well placed to do transhipment,” he continues. “While the vast majority of our traffic is to or from France, our volumes of transhipment are still significant.” Being on


ISSUE 4 2010 New age of giants for northern gateway


the northwest corner of the continent, Le Havre is a more convenient jumping off point for the UK west coast and Ireland than ports like Antwerp or Rotterdam, for instance. Perhaps the biggest challenge


facing the industry now is to finish off port reforms. In Le Havre, the process is in fact well advanced; the port authority has sold off its cranes and in the summer it signed agreements with the unions on social reforms. “So we are well on the way to becoming a ‘landlord’ port,” he explains, “and with privatisation finished, we will look to new markets. We will become more like Rotterdam.” With the uncertainty over, it


will in future be much easier to make agreements with terminal operators, although with three companies already in place, there is already a fair amount of competition on the quays of Le Havre. “One of the big challenges


that ports in Europe face is to maintain the level of competition, and our strategy will be geared towards that. And we already have the space and facilities to attract new operators once the economic crisis is over.”


ND set to spread its forwarding wings


Norbert Dentressangle is often seen as the archetypal French trucking company, but these days almost half its turnover comes from outside its original home country, points out chief executive officer, François Bertreau. Moreover, €1.1bn of the group’s total €2.9bn turnover these days comes from logistics, rather than pure road haulage. But it is perhaps the third of the group’s activities, freight forwarding, that has excited the most interest. With the major integration of UK logistics operator Christian Salvesen taking priority in 2008/09, ND only got down to developing its global forwarding arm in earnest in early 2010, so full year turnover will be a comparatively modest €30m. But it has come a long way in a short time, Bertreau points out. “And remember, in our first year our logistics turnover was only €140m.” From what was essentially a ‘greenfield’ start-up, the forwarding activities have grown to encompass five dedicated offices in France, two in the UK (Heathrow and Birmingham), one in Spain and Hong Kong and, with the recently completed acquisition of the forwarding activities of Schneider Logistics, seven in North America and two in China.


“Some of our clients were also users of forwarding services, but we have also found clients that are purely on the forwarding side,” explains Bertreau. “Some customers like the idea of a one-stop-shop, others prefer to control the two sides of their logistics operations


separately.” There might also be some crossover between the haulage, logistics and forwarding sides of the business, for example transport from ports for forwarding clients or warehousing for forwarding customers. “It might also be possible to provide a logistics contract service in other parts of the world like south-east Asia or South America,” adds Bertreau, although ND would probably only get involved with direct provision of the warehouse element. The forwarding network will expand in future,


but the immediate priority is to complete integration of the Schneider offices and inculcate the new acquisitions with ND values. “We are very attentive to culture in our company, and we want to make sure that the new acquisitions become part of that,” explains Bertreau. There is no game plan in terms of when and where the next expansion will take place yet, “but it’s not the end of the adventure, only the starting point,” states Bertreau.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32