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French fishermen block Calais port to demand ban on North Sea pulse fishing

French fishermen on Thursday blocked the port of Calais, preventing cross-Channel ferries arriving or departing, to demand a ban on electric pulse fishing in the North Sea.

Published: 25 January 2018 11:26 CET

French fishermen block Calais port to demand ban on North Sea pulse fishing

A fisherman prepares electric pulse fishing nets. Photo: AFP

A dozen fishing vessels from Calais and the nearby port of Boulogne-sur-Mer fanned out in front the pier, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

A spokeswoman for P&O ferry company said two car ferries were waiting in the English port of Dover to cross the Channel and two others were stuck in Calais.

Danish shipping company DFDS, which also runs ferries between France and Britain, said two of its vessels were delayed in Dover and one in Calais.

The Dover-Calais route is one of the busiest shipping routes in Europe.

Fishermen also blocked a road leading to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Calais, AFP witnessed.

Pulse fishing involves dragging electrically-charged lines just above the seafloor that shock marine life up from low-lying positions into trawling nets.

The method has been adopted in particular by Dutch vessels fishing for sole, raising the hackles of the French, who argue that it harms fish stocks.

The French push for a ban received a boost earlier this month when the European Parliament voted in favour of outlawing the practice.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa.

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology.

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces.

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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