Sharp decline in Nigeria container traffic hobbling shipping industry—- Drewry report
Findings by leading shipping investment survey carried out by Drewry Consult has revealed that West Africa and mainly Nigeria shipping industry has been facing series of shortfalls in terms of container traffic and throughputs.
The report said “Overall regional activity has fallen by nearly 13% since 2014 with more spectacular falls in some countries, particularly those with oil-based economies such as Angola (-50%) and Nigeria (-30%),” noting that two major greenfield projects have been hit .
It also expressed dissatisfaction over the nature of transshipment hubs serving West Africa’s port market.
Whereas the supposed leader in the region’s port market, Nigeria had attracted two new port projects coming up in Lekki and Badagry, the schemes seem to be facing some threat following the sudden pullout of ICTSI consortium from Lekki deep seaport.
Maritime and shipping stakeholders have expressed concerns on why government was too quiet in the series of complains earlier made by ICTSI before the final decision to leave the investment.
Besides, the Badagry scheme is still facing some levels of threats by host communities who are complaining of not being factored in or carried along at the preliminary stage of the deal.
At onset, both schemes were planned to come on stream last year.
However, the story is different in Togo as its new Terminal Investment Limited (TiL), Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) hub at Lome, is doing well, having opened in 2014, and handled over 500,000 TEU in 2016.
As part of capacity advancement, the Lome port recently sealed a 35-year concession deal with Ivory Coast’s second port of San Pedro to upgrade and operate its container terminal.
MSC, the concessionaire has noted that the improvements would allow vessels of up to 14,000 TEU to use the facility.
Elsewhere in Abidjan, a strategic hub is already emerging and San Pedro will join it, indicating that MSC is not going to rely on Lome as a single hub in the region.
Drewry report noted that in the West African region, lines use deep-sea services that make direct calls at a wide range of West African ports, deep-sea services that call at a few main hub ports in West Africa, from where the smaller ports are fed, as well as services where cargo is ‘interlined’ via West Mediterranean hubs connecting east-west loops to services that run between these hubs and the full range of West African ports.
“Despite the decline in market volumes, MSC has been increasing the capacity on its single Asia-West Africa loop, where the average vessel size moved from 9,501 TEU to 11,374 TEU, a 20% increase. In first-quarter 2016, a single vessel of 11,660 TEU was operating as the largest vessel in the loop, while in first-quarter 2017 there were three vessels of over 13,000 TEU,” the report added.
