Historically, the Port of Bordeaux is highly skilled in the handling of forest products. It mainly deals with wood bundle vessels (from North Europe), as well as the unloading of any type of wood log cargoes.
 
The Port of Bordeaux has many land spaces available at its Bassens terminal (GPMB terminal) which is located 10km from Bordeaux city centre. This land can be used for wood storage inside the port. four unloading cranes for this type of product (34-tonne Gottwald cable cranes). Today there are three types of activities identified in the wood sector at the Port of Bordeaux :
 
The import of logs to supply paper mills in the Bordeaux region. This activity started in the summer of 2022 and was very active until the end of the year. In 2022, this represented a total tonnage of 50,000 tonnes. These handling activities were made possible by a major investment in 2022 in new equipment by port subsidiary, the company Bordeaux Opérations Portuaires (BOP). It is a fully hydraulic Mantsinen crane (the most powerful on the current market – 300 series). This required a trainee period for local crane drivers for several months who were more used to working on cable cranes. The new Mantsinen crane made it possible to be more effective and increase considerably the quality of stevedoring services for the port’s clients. This type of cargo is discharged from box shape vessels of approximately 2,500–3,000 metric tonne capacity.
 
 
 
The export of wood chips following the forest fire period in Gironde during the summer of 2022. These exports began only at the end of 2022 and should continue into 2023. Unfortunately, the future in terms of volumes and duration of such activities is not promising. Here again, the Port of Bordeaux has proposed sufficient land space for wood chips which represents high volume of cargo. Cargo is loaded on box shape vessels of approximately 2,500 metric tonne capacity.
 
Finally, the export of wood waste from waste collection centres in the region of Bordeaux. The wood is exported to Northern Europe for energy use. Exports have been significantly slowed in recent months.
 
To summarize, the main assets for the wood sector at the port Bordeaux are:
  • Land spaces close shore side inside he port with important storage capacities; and
  • in addition to the cable cranes, new Mantsinen crane (electric power/ hydraulic system) giving more reliability and efficiency to the clients.
All these assets are associated with an ambitious port policy for the future (which have already been validated) to realize new investment in the existing port warehouses (revamping) to be able to propose safe covered storage areas for any type of forest product, but most probably for added-value products produced in its region and to be exported by sea (like paper rolls or even pulp).