On the picture (from left to right): Pierre Dartout – Prefect of the Region and French State Official, Christine Cabau-Woehrel – Grand Port Maritime de Marseille General Manager, Jean-Marc Forneri – Grand Port Maritime de Marseille CEO, Michel Ducros – Monaco Marine Group CEO, Renaud Muselier – South Region President, Roland Blum – Marseille Metropole Financial Councilman and Chantal Lemeteyer – Monaco Marine Secretary-General.
On Thursday 20 September 2018, the Port of Marseille Fos and Monaco Marine Marseille officially signed their partnership to create a mega yacht maintenance and refit centre in the Mirabeau harbour sector of the Port of Marseille Fos.
For a period of 50 years the Port has granted an area of 55,000 m2 dedicated to marine pleasure craft repair to the company Monaco Marine, which specializes in yacht maintenance and refit between Monaco and Marseille.
Keen to reinforce the development of port activity related maritime and industrial activities in the port area, the Port of Marseille Fos launched a call for projects at the beginning of 2018 with the aim of attracting proposals and initiating a general industrial project in the area of the Port known as the Mirabeau harbour. At the end of the process, having presented an ambitious project for a maintenance and renovation centre dedicated to very large 90 to 133 meter yachts, the company Monaco Marine was selected.
Alongside Monaco Marine, the Port of Marseille Fos is now enthusiastically committed to a 50-year concession contract. This development project is not only good news for the yachting business in Marseille, but also for the local ship repair cluster which has nearly 90 companies in our area. This Marseille project is not intended to compete with its neighbour La Ciotat, but proposes a complementary offer that strengthens the regional offer and creates a coherent whole ready to tackle the Spanish and Italian competition on this segment.
Monaco Marine, the trailblazer in the yacht repair and refit (conversion / transformation) business in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region where the Group already has seven shipyards (and a private marina) in Monaco, decided to develop its capacities and its activity with a mega yacht offer in Marseille.
The strong growth in the mega yacht market requires an increase in our capacity for very large units (up to 6,000 tonnes and 130 m in length) that only the Port of Marseille Fos infrastructure and waters can accommodate. With the creation of this base in Marseille, in addition to our excellent La Ciotat shipyard for units of 50 to 80 meters and the imminent opening of our site in Toulon-La Seyne for 35-50 meter vessels, we are able to offer our full services on all types of yachts and mega yachts. We are very confident in our future in Marseille where the quality of the infrastructure and the management of the Port, supported by all the local authorities in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, were determining factors in our decision to invest a considerable sum. We are delighted with the prospect of creating hundreds of direct and indirect jobs and contributing to the dynamism and prosperity of the Port and city we are attached to.
Monaco Marine will invest more than €44 million in the maintenance and refit centre project, notably by ordering and commissioning a 6,000-ton yachtlift - the world's largest in the yacht repair business.
The Port of Marseille will invest €27 million in infrastructure works to create the platform, an amount for which it will receive support from the State and the Region: €1.25 million each, i.e. €2.5 million under the 2015-2020 State Region Contract Plan for ship repair.
The Port of Marseille Fos already has an international reputation in the marine pleasure craft repair sector due to its remarkable technical capabilities and the expertise developed over many years by companies such as Palumbo Marseille Superyacht, ITM and Sud Marine Shipyard and the network of local subcontractors who are now highly specialized in specific yacht industry related activities. With this facility, the Marseille area now has an additional asset, which strengthens the Port of Marseille Fos in the face of its Mediterranean competitors. The entire ecosystem of port-related activities in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region and ship repair subcontracting will benefit from this growth.
The Monaco Marine Group was created in 1995 by Mr. Ducros - also owner of Fauchon - Monaco Marine France SAS. It specializes in superyacht maintenance and repair with the aim of standardizing and improving the level of service in the medium-sized pleasure yacht maintenance and renovation business. Over the last 23 years the Group has invested in maintenance infrastructure on the entire French coast.
In 2017 Marseille Fos recorded global traffic of 81 Mt, which all sectors combined makes it the leading port in France. A general cargo and multimodal port (rail, road, river, pipeline), it hosts warehouses in two logistics areas near the Fos container terminals and industry (refineries, iron and steel, chemicals) through a "plug & play" offer. A particularly dynamic segment, the container business has been booming over the last few years with growth of 40% in 6 years (up 10% in 2017). Like any world-class port, it provides ship repair activities with 9 refit dry docks, including the largest in the Mediterranean. Annually 2.7 million passengers pass through the Port.