A collective sigh of relief is being heard at SOMAP. After 18 months of uncertainty under administration, the Rouen-based handling company, and Marfret subsidiary, can look forward to a new future, with secure jobs. The Rouen Commercial Court has ruled in favour of -and unanimously applauded- the restructuring plan drawn up in-house and supported by the Marfret Group. A new era is opening up for SOMAP and the TCMD container and general cargo terminal, both sea terminal and logistics and multimodal hub for the Seine Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting first quarter 2022, customers will have at\ntheir disposal a modern and competitive 140,000 m2<\/sup> terminal with\nautomated access. SOMAP and AMS continue to provide handling services but shore-side\nactivities will be entrusted to a new entity, Rouen Conteneurs Terminal (RCT), born\nof the pooling of the aforesaid companies\u2019 material and human resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As at major ports elsewhere, hauliers will have access\nto the terminal via a booking system, which will streamline traffic flows. The\nlatest generation of the Oscar Terminal Operating System, in operation all over\nthe world, will enable operations to be automated, thus optimising the TCMD\u2019s\nmanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three-stage restructuring plan, introduced to make\nSOMAP viable, has been designed to scale the company to current container\nvolumes and make it more modern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first stage consisted of an analysis of tooling\nand equipment requirements. The second important decision to be taken was to\nwork towards closer collaboration between Marfret and Kuhn, which owns AMS, to\ncreate a shore-side organisation based on synergies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have set up a management company, RCT, whose sole\nclients are SOMAP and AMS; RCT leases the equipment and receives the dockers\nassigned to shore-side handling operations and shunting within the port area,\u201d\nexplains SOMAP director Louis Bonnefon. Lastly, a reduction of nine SOMAP staff\nwas made possible through a voluntary redundancy plan with accompanying social\nmeasures and a reorientation premium. SOMAP today employs 35 staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sea terminal and multimodal hub<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n SOMAP\u2019s future is looking much brighter today, with\nits port handling services for ships of up to 4500TEU in capacity and a\nmultimodal hub on the Seine route for both import and export cargoes. \u201cWe are providing\nsupport for Le Havre\u2019s business by positioning Rouen as a distribution hub for\nFrance,\u201d adds Bonnefon, \u201cthanks to the space at our disposal, easy terminal\naccess and the massification solutions provided by our Fluviofeeder service to\nand from Le Havre.\u201d Indeed, the Arina<\/em> feeder calls at three Le Havre\nterminals (TDF, TN and Quai des Am\u00e9riques) before leaving on its twice-weekly\nservice to Rouen. The river service is continued upstream by the Marfret\nSeine<\/em>, which operates weekly between the Paris region and Rouen, arriving\non Wednesdays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, and for the first time since 2016, SOMAP\nhandled three port calls by ships on the regular French Guiana\/NEFGUI service,\nplus three other port calls, arranged on behalf of HAROPA, to reposition empty\ncontainers and relieve the Le Havre terminals suffering from endemic congestion\ncaused by the hectic global logistics situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2022 will see the completion of SOMAP and the TCMD\u2019s\nrestructuring, with an improved service offering and a strategic positioning\nalong the Seine route as part of HAROPA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A collective sigh of relief is being heard at SOMAP. After 18 months of uncertainty under administration, the Rouen-based handling company, and Marfret subsidiary, can look forward to a new future, with secure jobs. The Rouen Commercial Court has ruled in favour of -and unanimously applauded- the restructuring plan drawn up in-house and supported by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":5822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,258],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hinterland-transport","category-news-nl-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n