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Eurotunnel has said that damage caused by the fire in one of its English Channel tubes will have a "limited financial" impact.

The company only just managed to post an annual profit for the first time ever this year.

Shares in Groupe Eurotunnel were up 0.2%, at 9.02 euros, on Friday morning in Paris, after the company said in a press release that operating losses from the fire, which is reported to have started on Thursday afternoon on a truck that was loaded on a freight train travelling between Folkestone and Calais, would be covered by insurance and that the financial impact of the blaze would be minor.

The fire was still burning on Friday morning, but Chairman Jacques Gounon told French radio that traffic could resume on Friday and that service could get back to "half capacity" during the day. The north tunnel, where the freight shuttle caught fire, would be closed for several weeks.

"By luck there is the south tunnel which is absolutely intact," he said. The fire has reportedly injured 14 people, mostly truck drivers accompanying their vehicles on the train, while the subsequent suspension of traffic left many travellers stranded on Thursday evening.

Eurotunnel, which operates passenger and freight travel between Britain and France, has been steadily improving its finances in the past two years.