Positive port figures in Le Havre for the year 2007

The year 2007 ended with particularly positive results for port business in Le Havre with a global growth of 6.6% of tonnage with nearly 80 million tonnes (79.4 Mt as provisional figures including bunkering and ship stores) and an outstanding rise in container traffic: +25.3% in tonnage against the year 2006.

Container trade recorded excellent results all through 2007, accounting for more than 26.4 Mt (up 25.3%) and 2.6 million TEU. In volume, since February 2007, the monthly container traffic rose higher than 200,000TEU, peaking at 250,000TEU in October (up 29.2% against the same month in 2006).

New infrastructure was cited as the prime factor for Port 2000's growth, and it has achieved a high build-up in 2007 with 760,000 TEU handled in Terminal de France while the Terminal Porte Oceane, which started operation in late November, is now in its starting phase with 11,300TEU handled over the first 5 weeks of business in 2007. The other general cargo (mainly ro-ro traffic) accounted for 1.6 Mt in 2007, recording a slight decrease in comparison with 2006 (down 0.7%).

Good performance was also seen in dry bulks in 2007 as tonnage rose by 31% to 4.8 Mt. This trade was especially boosted by the growth of coal traffic (up 34% with 2.4 Mt in 2007) that accounts for half the tonnage. In other respects, other dry bulks remained stable.

Liquid bulks were down in year 2007, dropping 3.1% to 46.0 Mt from 2006, mainly owing to the impact of the five-year stoppage of the Normandy refinery for a period of two months. Crude oil traffic recorded a 3.7% decrease in tonnage with 33Mt at the end of 2007.

The passenger trade (ferries and cruise vessels) experienced an upturn in 2007 with more than 430,000 passengers. Among them, 78,000 involved cruising trade (up 33% against 2006) and about 355,000 cross-Channel trade (up 34.2% against 2006).