HAROPA PORT reveals €590m investment in decarbonized industrial cluster

In 2022, HAROPA PORT, France’s leading port, saw over half a billion euros invested in the development of a decarbonized industrial cluster at the port.

“The ecological and energy transition account for 16% of the port’s investments in 2022 and will increase to 19% in 2023,” the port authority said.

The portion equals €590 million of public and private-sector investment assigned for the cluster on the Seine Axis.

In 2022, French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) launched a call for proposals for the creation of the ZIBAC project (Zones Industrielles Bas Carbone/Low-Carbon Industrial Zone) on the Seine Axis.

HAROPA PORT with its three port/industrial zones, working through the nonprofits Synerzip – LH, Incase – Industrie Caux Seine and Upside Boucles de Rouen, submitted a joint application to the call.

In October 2022, the cities of Le Havre, Rouen, Paris, in conjunction with HAROPA PORT, selected 21 submissions in response to the first call for declarations of interest for the development of decarbonized urban river logistics at 32 locations along the Seine Axis.

The project partners established a provisional list of studies costing over €10m for the preparation of the decarbonization of industrial and logistics operations.

The projects include a biowaste production initiative, hydrogen generation from LNG service stations, plastic recycling, among others.

Specifically, the largest multimodal platform of the Greater Paris area will soon be producing green energy using biowaste. A company named PAPREC has been selected to design and operate the future methanisation plant to process household biowaste from the Paris area at the port of Gennevilliers. This plant has a capacity of 50,000 tonnes and, starting in 2025, will generate biogas for injection into the Paris area supply network, in addition to farm fertilizer.

Following the deployment of a network of LNG service stations, a new generation of multienergy stations will be set up at multimodal platforms in the Paris area at Gennevilliers, Bonneuil-sur-Marne, Limay, Bruyères and Montereau. These facilities will be able to distribute decarbonized hydrogen to meet the needs of road transport, as well as river transport in a later phase.

At the Port-Jérôme port/industrial zone a new industrial cluster– “Plastic Valley” – dedicated to recycling and producing the latest-generation renewable plastic is currently being organized, most notably around the projects of Eastman and Futerro. The site will also see the production of renewable hydrogen with Air Liquide’s Normand’Hy project, which has an unprecedented capacity of 200 MW.

And lastly, the decision on the award following the Grand Canal call for project proposals in Le Havre, will be announced during the first quarter of 2023.

In June 2021, ports of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris merged to create a new port complex the “Seine Axis Major River & Sea Port”. They now form a single port ranking no. 1 in France and fifth among Northern European ports.

France’s central government has provided the new port complex with a massive financial underpinning of €1.45 billion for the years 2021-2027 to bankroll numerous projects for the development and redevelopment of port facilities.

The port authority said that now it is seeing the first significantly positive results with MSC’s historic decision to invest in reinforcing the Seine logistics corridor.

In 2023, France’s top port intends to continue its investment and its transformation, developing the first decarbonised industrial ecosystem and continuing the structural development of its multimodal logistics corridor.

“In 2022, the global economy was impacted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, combined with the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation, which has reached levels not seen for several decades. And despite this, for HAROPA PORT, the year has been one of a change in scale and striking resistance to these headwinds in the context of strategic focuses approved by its Supervisory Board,” said Cédric Virciglio, HAROPA PORT Strategic Planning Director.

“These encouraging results and the consolidation of the port’s strategy make HAROPA PORT an effective project for local regions and a key component of France’s international outreach and sovereignty. This encourages us to pursue the transformation of France’s number 1 port.”

“Eighteen months after its creation and following a historic year in which the symbolic level of 3m TEU
was surpassed, HAROPA PORT has consolidated its positioning. In addition to the remarkable
resistance shown by traffic levels, key milestones have been achieved, foremost among them the
announcement by MSC TiL last July that they would be investing €700m over the period to 2028 to
triple their container volume, making us a major port of entry for France and Europe and giving us the
means to develop river-based services to the Paris basin,” said Kris Danaradjou, HAROPA PORT Deputy General Manager.