Starting on 29 January, a vessel of 800 TEU intake will provide a weekly rotation over Dunkirk’s Quai de Flandres, operated for the port by CMA CGM Group (Terminal-Link).

The rotation is Dunkirk every Friday, Liverpool (Sunday evenings/Monday mornings) and Bristol Avonmouth on Tuesdays.

The service, called DUNK by Containerships (apparently without a trace of irony!), will link with CMA CGM’s FAL 1 (French Asia Line 1) service over Dunkirk and expected weekly intake is 600 TEU originating mainly in Asia, 300 TEU of British exports to Asia and 75 TEU of shortsea traffic (45ft HC palletwides) in UK-Continent shortsea flows.

Last November, Containerships added Dunkirk to its existing Rotterdam-Cork/Dublin service, providing another landbridge bypass to the Continent for Ireland-Europe trades. Dunkirk is already connected by Containerships with Tilbury as part of the brand’s long-established Iberian Peninsula service turning over Rotterdam.

14 January update:

The DUNK feeder service is not linked to congestion at Felixstowe, said Daniel Deschodt, the Port of Dunkirk’s CCO and Acting CEO, speaking at the port’s annual results conference today. He made the point that FAL 1 no longer calls at Southampton, and the new service signifies Dunkirk’s growing position as an option for transhipment.

Asked whether, in the post-Brexit context, the port could see a shift towards unaccompanied ferry links with the UK, he admitted that France lagged behind Belgian and Dutch ports in providing the right infrastructure for this type of ro-ro freight, but the prospects, going forward, were brighter, because of driver shortages in Europe and the growth of rail-ro multimodal chains. Capacity of the dry port in the Western Docks is being increased with a €10.7M investment and Novatrans (Groupe Charles André), which already links the port with Dourges, Valenton, the south of France and Northern Italy, is well-placed to take advantage of this, for trailers as well as shipping containers.

He added that the new “landbridge bypass” Dunkirk-Rosslare ferry service from DFDS is proving very popular in both directions, and it looks as though this six days/week service could develop towards a 50:50 split between accompanied and unaccompanied, although it is too early to make accurate forecasts on this point.

Introducing the port’s annual results conference, Emmanuelle Vergier, the President of the port’s Supervisory Board, stressed that the port remained 100% open in 2020 in all its handling, service and ancillary areas, despite the lockdown (confinement), which was almost total between March and May.

This is illustrated in some of the figures for 2020 – ro-pax freight (UK o/d accompanied) was up 4% to 607,000 units, while lo-lo container traffic increased by 2% to 463,000 TEU, including a 5% increase in loaded container numbers. Of course the pax side nosedived due to the pandemic, with pax numbers down 54% to 1.077M and tourist cars down 70% to 173,000. Overall, ro-pax throughput was down just 1% to 14.8 Mt.

Overall, said Mme Vergier, the port handled 45.2 Mt in 2020 (- 14%), with general cargo down 4% to 19.3 Mt, liquid bulk down by 18% to 7.7 Mt and dry bulk down 22% to 18.1 Mt. Naturally, there was sharp fall in demand for coal (down 28% to 3.6 Mt) and ore (down 34% to 8.7 Mt) for steel-making; ArcelorMittal Dunkerque shut down one of its blast furnaces completely and temporarily closed another. Breakbulk cargo throughput fell by 50% last year to 0.6 Mt, due to a massive drop in export demand for steel coils for the car industry. 

On the other hand, grain throughput shot up by 63% to 3.3 Mt, a new record, due to strong demand from China and the Maghreb, with imports of maize and other cereal crops also up.

Dunkirk is already France’s leading port for perishables and during 2020 it attracted a new service from Seatrade Reefer Chartering, bringing in produce from Ecuador, Peru and Surinam.  Other highlights included the opening of a new 43,000 m3 cold store by Norfrigo. At the beginning of 2020, it became the first port in Europe to commission a cold ironing facility at a lo-lo container berth. In December, a LoI was signed with H2V59 for a new “green hydrogen” electrolysis plant in the port. 

Key investments this year include the dry port extension (above), Conhexa is extending its import produce logistics activities, work will start on a new plant for Clarebout (frozen potatoes), and work will start on an offshore wind farm off Bray-Dunes. On the security front, a new Anglo-French border police station will be commissioned.

Looking beyond 2021, a new ro-ro linkspan will be built, a 43,000 m2 ambient goods warehouse will be commissioned by SDAN, and Samfi-Invest is building a 20,000 m2 ambient goods warehouse to cater for both deepsea container loads and UK-Continent ro-ro traffic. SNF Floerger is going ahead with a new polymers plant, which is expected to adds “thousands of TEU” to the port’s deepsea lo-lo traffic. 

• During the results conference Mme Vergier referred to the “bels avenirs” of the former CEO Stéphane Raison, who is now leading a task force to convert the HAROPA GIE into a single, unified Grand Port Maritime. A new CEO is expected to be appointed at GPM de Dunkerque in the next few months.