Next year he and his son will launch a similar maritime assault on the Baltic Sea routes that link Helsinki and Stockholm with Germany.
The conversion is rejuvenating China's ancient Silk Road to the west, immortalised by Marco Polo in the 14th century but rarely used since sea routes made the camel trains redundant.
BBC: News | oldBusiness | The future shines for China's Silk Road
Sand has been stripped from groynes blocking direct routes to the sea.
The biggest gain will come from melding their rail operations, providing shorter routes to the sea from some mines and thus cheaper ways to achieve the blend of ores required by certain customers.
Ways of life have been thrown into flux in Greenland as sea ice thaws and new shipping routes into the Arctic open up.
With Heathrow's growth constrained, direct routes across the North Sea and links via other European hubs - Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and so on - Scotland's inbound tourism and outbound business could do with new options.
At least in the short term, Mr Gautier says, government activity in the Arctic has more to do with transport routes than with under-sea riches.
Maritime Routes or Spice Routes, linking East and West by sea were also developed.
The country has been unable to benefit fully from its gas and oil deposits because of an absence of export routes and a dispute between the Caspian Sea littoral states over the legal status of offshore oil.
Coffee spread to Europe by two routes - from the Ottoman Empire, and by sea from the original coffee port of Mocha.
BBC: Coffee and qahwa: How a drink for Arab mystics went global
It managed to land a sea-borne force north of the camp and cut off supply routes.
An hour's drive away is the Hairaton border crossing to Uzbekistan, which provides a link to a network of rail and truck routes that reach across Central Asia and Russia to Baltic and Black Sea ports.
When the land-based routes became less accessible after the collapse of the Mongol empire, European traders sought a sea-based alternative.
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