Opening of the river port of Gron

The brand new river port in Gron was unveiled: a 5 M€ public investment located along the Yonne River just in front of Gron Prysmian plant and a couple of miles upstream from Paron Prysmian plant. With a 12.000 m² platform able to serve simultaneously two 1.000 tons / 90 m long barges, the infrastructure will have a transit capacity of 10.000 TEU/year. It will bring about significant benefits to transportations since a new waterway service will operate connecting the site to the “Port autonome de Paris” in Gennevilliers and so to Le Havre and Antwerp ports in Northern Europe.

The service, powered by the Bourgogne Container Service together with French government and the Yonne Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be completely operating once a week starting from March 2010 by means of a new environmentally friendly vessel: the Q-Barge.

This innovative barge is equipped with a new engine complying with the recent European antipollution standards Etape 2, and it will be able to carry 30 High Cube Containers and 30 Standard Height Containers in two levels, encouraging the application of more ecologic transportation practices in comparison to the traditional road haulage:

• CO² saving possible up till 95%
• Particulate Matter(PM) emission 0.01%
• Strong reduction of noise-pollution

The new water route will enhance the transportation of Prysmian products coming from the facility of Gron, whose capacity overcomes 28.000 tons per year of Medium Voltage, High and Extra High Voltage cables up to 400 kV and MV accessories for both Domestic (ERDF and RTE french utilities) and Export (direct or through Powerlink) applications.
For Gron plant 10 to 20% of the total production could be at present the object of a transport by inland waterway using the port of Gron.
In the next future, also products from Paron facility, special cables and compounds, may benefit from the new waterway.

The inauguration event took place at the site and inside Gron plant HV laboratory (testing hall) and was attended by French governement secretary of state, Henri De Raincourt (Ministre chargéè des Relations avec le Parlement), Bourgogne region and Yonne district authorities together with Prysmian representatives: Laurent Tardif, Pierre Perrin, Roberto Cardi, Jacques Berdala, Jean Pierre Bevand, and Jawdat Mansour, Augusto Bonzani and Sylvie Robin.
On this occasion a 35 tons load shipment of twelve HV cables drums (37 tons each) departed on board of a barge toward the Belgian port of Antwerp, final destination Doha Bay, capital of Qatar. Before the introduction of this new waterway, twelve exceptional transport road trucks would have been required to move the same quantity.