After four quarters of decline, in the first three months of 2024 Cargo traffic in French ports has returned to 71.5 million tonnes of loads, with an increase of +6.9% over the first quarter of 2023, of which 45.0 million tonnes of goods at unloading (+2.5%) and 26.5 million tons of cargo at loading (+15.3%). The recovery has been recorded in all major product sectors starting from that of the miscellaneous goods in which they were handled 27.5 million tonnes (+8.7%), including 11.7 million tonnes tonnes of containerised goods (+14.0%) made with a container handling of 1.23 million TEUs (+8.3%) and 14.8 million tonnes of rolling stock (+5.4%). There is also an increase in liquid bulk with 31.1 million tonnes (+6.7%) as follows such as dry bulk with 12.9 million tons (+3.7%).

In addition, the overall growth in traffic was generated by the increase in volumes handled in all major ports with the exception of Bordeaux where, with 1.5 million tonnes, a decrease in the -3.0% due to the reduction in liquid bulk volumes (1.1 million tonnes, -0.7%), of dry bulk (257 thousand tonnes, -16.7%) and conventional goods (26 thousand tonnes, -5.3%), partially offset by the increase in the number of goods in containers (58 thousand tons, +0.4%).

In the first three months of this year, the first port in terms of volume of traffic, represented by the Haropa port system consisting of the ports of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris, handled a total of 21.6 million tonnes of goods (+13.4%), of which 10.5 million tonnes of tonnes of liquid bulk (+5.5%), 4.0 million tonnes of dry bulk (+23.2%), 6.9 million tonnes of cargo containerized (+23.8%) made with a handling of containers equal to 686 thousand TEUs (+15.7%), 143 thousand tons of rolling stock (-9.6%) and 120 thousand tons of conventional goods (-32,0%).

This was followed by the port of Marseille, which handled globally 16.6 million tonnes of cargo (+6.3%), of which 10.5 million tonnes tonnes of liquid bulk (+9.2%), 1.6 million tonnes dry bulk (-16.6%), 3.1 million tonnes of cargo containerized (+14.0%) totalled with a handling of containers of 326 thousand TEUs (+4.3%), 1.0 million tonnes of rolling stock (+0.2%) and 336 thousand tons of conventional cargo (+11,9%).

The total traffic in the port of Dunkirk was almost 12.0 million tonnes (+3.5%), including 3.2 million tonnes tonnes of liquid bulk (+6.2%), 4.2 million tonnes of dry bulk (+4.2%), 1.2 million tonnes of cargo containerized (-7.8%) with a container handling of 167 thousand TEUs (-2.7%), 3.1 million tons of rolling stock (+7.8%) and 341 thousand tons of conventional goods (-18.2%).

In the port of Calais, the overall handling was less than 10.1 million tonnes of cargo (+2.5%) largely consisting of rolling stock (9.9 million tonnes, +2.5%), i.e. dry bulk (114 thousand tons, +12.1%) and liquid bulk (26 thousand tons, -19.0%).

Traffic in the port of Nantes-Saint Nazaire has grown by +11.2% to 6.9 million tonnes, of which 5.0 million tonnes tonnes of liquid bulk (+20.8%), 1.4 million tonnes of dry bulk (-9.3%), 341 thousand tons of containerized cargo (-4.2%) with a container handling of 30 thousand TEUs (-11.6%), 101 thousand tons of rolling stock (-5.4%) and 51 thousand tons of conventional goods (+15.6%).

Finally, in La Rochelle, the overall traffic was almost 2.4 million tonnes (+31.3%), including 1.6 million tonnes tons of dry bulk (+60.4%), 646 thousand tons of bulk liquids (-13.6%) and 161 thousand tons of conventional goods (+117,0%).