Anglo-French cross-Channel rail operator Eurotunnel signed a new freight contract on Friday as it works to keep its operations running despite a make-or-break debt restructuring plan that hangs in the balance.
"Eurotunnel is a company with two faces - on the one hand the company with a debt problem almost daily in the headlines and on the other hand an operating company that is running normally," said Jean-Pierre Trotignon, the head of operations at Eurotunnel.
Dutch transport group Nedexco signed a contract for 300,000 truck crossings. The price was not revealed but a crossing can cost between 200 and 1,100 euros. The amount is in the millions of euros and Eurotunnel Chairman and Chief Executive Jacques Gounon called it "a huge value". Eurotunnel runs car and freight shuttle trains through the tunnel while Eurostar runs passenger services.
Of Eurotunnel revenues of 793 million euros ($1.02 billion) in 2005, 60 percent came from the shuttles and of that 60 percent is freight.
The company aims to boost the revenues, extending its reach towards east Europe, an area from which comes a rising number of trucks. In 2005, Eurotunnel cut its capacity and staff numbers by 30 percent as it dropped a policy of just chasing volume in competition with the ferry companies but instead tried to boost its profitability. It now has an operating profit margin of 55 percent.
Eurotunnel charges higher prices than the ferries because of its speed and reliability - its timetable is not affected by the weather - and Nedexco account manager Eelco Schnabel said this was important, especially for fresh produce.
"We trust Eurotunnel will be there in at least another 25 years," Schnabel said. But he added: "For us the most important thing is the service, not the name of the company."
Eurotunnel was placed under the French version of Chapter 11 on August 2 with 6.2 billion pounds in debts. The company last month filed a debt restructuring proposal with the Paris Commercial Court to be put to creditors. This will cut the debt by more than half, giving creditors up to 87 percent of the equity in a new Eurotunnel company.
At the Coquelles site, arriving trucks first go through heat screening to check for illegal immigrants. In case of suspicion, trucks are taken aside for a carbon dioxide test that can determine whether somebody aboard is breathing.
The number of stowaways has fallen since 2005, when 51,000 arrests were made by the police on the French side, but currently 20 to 40 illegal immigrants are still stopped each week.
At customs, if an illegal immigrant is found, the truck company can be fined 2,000 euros per immigrant. The number of crossings varies through the day and with seasons. In 2005, there were up to four crossings per hour in both directions for passenger shuttles and up to six per hour in each direction for trucks.
On the freight shuttles, the first three wagons are empty for safety reasons to separate drivers from potentially hazardous cargoes and Gounon told visiting journalists that this was an aberration.