The Port of Dunkirk Aims to Join the Major Leagues of Maritime Freight

Dunkirk’s story begins with a small herring-fishing port founded in the 11th century. It became a commercial port in the mid-14th century as trade with England and the Netherlands intensified, before suffering several periods of destruction in the 18th century under the pressure of wartime treaties and English invasions. The Port of Dunkirk returned to the forefront of maritime freight in the 19th century with the successive arrival of the railroad and various industries: oil milling, sawmilling, textiles, metallurgy, and more. Today, the Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque (GPMD) ranks as France’s third-largest port and the seventh-largest in the Northern European range, which encompasses ports between Le Havre and Hamburg.

For Julien de Lapize, CEO of Société de Développement Axe Nord, a real estate developer and investor building new sites there: “ The Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque will reach maturity by 2030, when it will join the ranks of the major ports of Northern Europe. ” Dunkirk stands out as France’s leading port for imports of containerized fruit, the leading rail freight hub, the second-largest port for trade with Great Britain and the leading inland port in Nord/Pas-de-Calais. Still, this is not enough to put it on a par with Antwerp, which continues to receive nearly one million containers bound for the Hauts-de-France region.

“ Dunkirk is highly competitive because of its location on the world’s second-busiest shipping route: container ships can dock in 90 minutes, compared with seven hours for Antwerp, ” says Julien de Lapize. In 2022, Dunkirk handled 49 million metric tons of traffic (up 1.5%), compared with 85.1 million metric tons for Haropa Port (Le Havre, Rouen, Paris) and 289 million metric tons in Antwerp. Le Havre remains by far France’s leading port, but for Dunkirk, competition is not really with the port in Seine-Maritime. Indeed, the two ports on the French coast capture some of the containers diverted from the increasingly congested Benelux ports. “ Antwerp is becoming increasingly overloaded because of the growth of e-commerce and the massive size of the latest generation of container ships. This means ships are finding it increasingly difficult to arrive, and available berths are lacking, while Dunkirk has opted for major development projects. ”

It will not catch up overnight, but the Port of Dunkirk lacks neither effort nor advantages. It recorded the strongest growth in the Northern European range over the past two years (+62% in number of containers). “ One of Dunkirk’s great strengths lies in the ‘social contract’ established in the early 1990s, with a major contribution from the dockworkers’ union, which works as much for dialogue as for the port’s attractiveness. ” Service quality, speed of transit and more: little wonder, then, that the Port of Dunkirk was voted the favorite by French shipper customers for two consecutive years in the barometer published by AUTF, with an 88% satisfaction rate.

To fully achieve its objectives, the Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque is investing in its infrastructure so it can accommodate an increasing number of container ships at berth. Nearly 400,000 m² of new warehouses are currently planned or under construction, whereas warehouses located in the port area totaled around 150,000 m² in 2021. This land availability (around 1,000,000 m² of available land) and its commitment to regional development are attracting new investors to the Dunkerque Logistique International (DLI) zone, which was also awarded “ turnkey ” status under the Choose France program. According to Estelle Hassen, environmental director at AConstruct, “ Dunkerque Logistique International and Zone Grandes Industries are rapidly developing areas that can accommodate new activities. However, land reserves are not unlimited, which encourages the GPMD to prioritize activity projects directly linked to the port. ”

Among the various projects underway, Société de Développement Axe Nord is developing “ a warehouse dedicated to cold-chain logistics, with capacity for 68,000 pallets and a height of 35 meters, which will be used by an industrial company—the contract is being finalized. ” While projects are multiplying, certain permitting constraints are being felt: “ For this project, we had to file a second application because we initially planned a self-supporting steel frame and had to opt for a concrete frame, necessarily with a higher cost per pallet space. Indeed, the concrete structure does not allow the same height to be reached (42 meters in the first version of the project) and results in less efficient use of the land. ” Estelle Hassen explains, while also praising “ the ease of exchanges ” with GPMD stakeholders. Société de Développement Axe Nord also inaugurated, in the presence of Minister for Transport Clément Beaune, “ a 43,800 m² building on behalf of an industrial company. ”

With this new infrastructure, many logistics players (Krown Logistry, Warehouse De Pauw, Ziegler, etc.) are taking positions in the new zone, confirming the port’s exceptional development potential. Storage capacity is therefore growing rapidly, as is the capacity to accommodate ships at berth. “ Ships are more than 400 m long, details Julien de Lapize. If a shipping line decides to call at a port, it needs a 24-hour guarantee that a berth will be available. This is the Port of Dunkirk’s vision for competing with Benelux ports: creating an additional berth and aiming to build 1 km of waterfront in the coming years. ”

The Port of Dunkirk is building its long-term strategy around three fundamental areas. First, the zone not only provides logistics functions for managing inventory and flows, but is increasingly targeting industrial facilities to process some products locally. For example, Europe’s first automotive battery recycling plant (with 90% recycled components) will be built in Dunkirk by mining group Eramet. This announcement is in line with the Port of Dunkirk’s ambition to become a major decarbonization hub, through the creation of a dedicated space at the port. ArcelorMittal, for its part, is establishing a direct-reduced iron unit as part of the plan to decarbonize France’s “ 50 highest-emitting sites ,” announced last November by Emmanuel Macron. Specifically, the steel group plans to build two electric furnaces and connect to the port’s heating network.

Lastly, the port’s development is not conceived in isolation. It is part of a much broader regional strategy encompassing the entire hinterland of the Hauts-de-France region, with industrial hubs such as Dourges and Valenciennes. “ Logistics are strategic for us. We count 144,000 direct and indirect private-sector jobs linked to this sector, representing 11% of private-sector employment at the regional level, ” Philippe Hourdain, president of the Hauts-de-France Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said a few months ago. Within a 300-kilometer radius, no fewer than 100 million people make up one of Europe’s main living and consumer areas. Through an association with the ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer called the Nordlink alliance, Dunkirk is boosting its competitiveness and becoming part of what amounts to France’s leading port complex. Companies such as Decathlon are also betting on the Port of Dunkirk in their logistics strategies rather than Antwerp or Rotterdam. In the midst of transformation and booming growth, the Port of Dunkirk clearly has every argument to become a major player.