A big blow for the first river grain port in France. The port of Metz is partially stopped since Sunday December 8, due to the total interruption of river traffic on the Moselle river. The cause: a damaged lock in Müden, Germany, after being hit by a freight boat. The Sarre-Moselle Waterways Office plans repair work until March 2025. Traffic will therefore not be able to resume until then.
Direct consequence: 70 boats are stuck on the river on the German and Luxembourg side, and 35 on the French side. Most carry cereals or industrial products. “We have two scenarios: boats which are already loaded and those which were on their way to load”explains Jean-Marc Thomas, general manager of Rhenus Partnership France, the company which manages the port of Metz. “We will look on a case-by-case basis. But materials that absolutely must be transported will be transferred to road transport or to Alsatian ports.”
“The worst possible place for an incident of this type”
The first modal shift will be by road. Transport via rails will only take place in a second phase, with the implementation of “rail shuttles within fifteen days to a month and a half for facilities accessible by rail”specifies Jean-Marc Thomas. “The port of Metz will not be completely shut down”, he assures. “But we can imagine activity falling by 50 to 80% if there is no alternative mode of transport deployed.”
The general director of Rhenus Partnership France believes that a blockage at this level of the Moselle, just before joining the Rhine at Koblenz, “this is unheard of”. “It was the worst possible place for an incident like this to happen.”he laments. “This is a place where the lock is not doubled, there is not a second one allowing passage. Access is blocked, so it is a bottleneck. We are really in the worst case scenario.”
Rhenus Partnership also manages the operation of other Lorraine ports : in Thionville, Frouard and Toul.
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