Good news for the port of Rouen (Seine-Maritime) which should welcome on the banks of the Seine, by 2025, one of the largest sugar refineries in Europe. In any case, this is the project chosen by the management of Haropa – which brings together the ports of Paris, Rouen and Le Havre – to occupy a 75 ha industrial wasteland located in Moulineaux, on the left bank of the river, and labeled a site turnkey industrial.
As Pascal Gabet, Deputy Managing Director of Haropa, explains, “it’s the AKS sugar bowl (Al Khaleej Sugar), an international refining specialist, who wishes to create this factory intended for the transformation of beet into sugar with an annual production of between 650,000 and 850,000 tonnes. It will be mainly intended for export to Africa and southern Europe”.
This sovereign fund of the United Arab Emirates already weighs 3% of the world sugar market and wishes to continue its external development with this new establishment which will require on its part an investment of several hundred million euros.
Opportunities for Calvados beet growers
The key for the Rouen conurbation is the creation of 300 direct jobs and more than 1,000 indirect jobs. And an annual logistics flow of around 35,000 containers of sugar bags, more than half of which should transit by sea from the Haropa Container and General Goods Terminal, which adjoins the future sugar refinery.
With the added bonus of outlets for farmers in Normandy, in particular those in Calvados, who could supply two-thirds of the 4.5 million tonnes of beets needed to operate the site, which will also include a biomass boiler and a biomethanizer to produce its own energy.
“There are still many steps before the realization of this project, which is on the right track. The next step will be for AKS to file a file in order to obtain the necessary authorizations for its installation from the State services”, continues Pascal Gabet, who insists on the fact that Haropa will accompany the industrialist who came from Dubai in this progress, while making the necessary investments which will include in particular the connection of the site to the Norman railway network to transport part of the raw material there.