Nearly 33 years after France came up with an idea to create a high-capacity canal link between the Seine basin and the north, the project is finally moving forward, with benefits extending to the Benelux countries.
Out of 6,700 km of waterways in France, only 2,000 km can accommodate larger barges ¨C and the higher-capacity waterways are not connected. Seine-Nord Europe is set to change all that.
The project, which went through public inquiry earlier this year, will remove the capacity bottleneck between the Seine basin and the inland waterway network in northern France's Nord-Pas de Calais region. A call for tenders will be issued by the end of this year and construction could begin by 2009, with the canal opening in 2013.
Crucially, while the connection will benefit operators using the French canal network between Le Havre, Paris and Dunkirk, it will also form the missing link to a new high-capacity corridor from Le Havre to Amsterdam - the Seine-Scheldt waterway.
The new corridor will open up access to six seaports in northern Europe, representing 60 percent of Europe's exports and imports.
The completed Seine-Nord canal from Compi¨¨gne to Aubencheul-au-Bac will be 106 km in length, 54m wide and 4.5m deep. The route is already served by the canal network but only barges up to 650 tonnes can navigate the stretch. The expansion will provide access for barges up to 4,400 tonnes.
Four new multimodal platforms will be built along the Seine-Nord canal, the idea being to develop intermodality between water, rail and road.
There will also be 360 ha of industrial port and logistics zones.
The project cost is estimated at US$4 billion. French waterway authority Voies Navigables de France, expects funds to be raised through public-private partnerships, with charging for use of infrastructure, using a harmonised tariff structure throughout the Seine-Scheldt network.
In 2005, 465 million tonnes of freight was transported in the EU countries.
Waterborne traffic in France has grown 40 percent since 1997 to reach 62 million tonnes last year. This is attributed to diversification in goods and enormous growth in container traffic.
However growth has been hindered by a reduction in the number of Freycinet barges (which can carry on average 250 tonnes of cargo) and a lack of new operators.
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