International port management conglomerate, APM Terminals’ Global Investment Limited are discussing with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the $3 billion Badagry Deep- sea Port project. The project when completed would be concessioned for 45 years period to handle an annual throughput capacity of 1.8 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). Unlike Lekki Port’s $361 billion within the concession period, the port is expected to generate $53.6 billion revenue for government.
The proposed site of the project is located 55 kilometres west of Apapa port in Lagos. The approved deep-sea port is an initiative of a consortium led by APM Terminals, Orlean Invest, Oando, Terminal Investment Limited and Macquarie. It was learnt that the NPA Managing Director, Mohammed Bello- Koko, and his management team were already in discussion centered on the takeoff of the Badagry project, which was conceived in 2016 to take the pressure off the overstretched Lagos ports.
The investment team was led by Martjin Van Dongen, the Global Head, Business Development of APM Terminals Global Investment Limited. Bello- Koko revealed that the two teams discussed how to optimise the potential of the Badagry Deep Seaport. He noted: “Discussions focused on optimising the potentials of the upcoming Badagry Deep Seaports and other new ports as NPA Management intensifies action toward the vision to make Nigeria the maritime logistics hub for sustainable port services in Africa.”
In 2016, the Federal Government conceived the idea of developing deep seaports in the country to position Nigeria as the hub of maritime activities in the West African sub-region. The proposed deep sea ports project include Lekki deep sea port, which has already taken off, the Ondo deep sea port, Ibom Deep seaport and Badagry deep seaport. While preparations for the take- off of both the Ondo and Ibom sea ports projects are in top gear, that of the Badagry project was initially bogged down by technicalities and disagreement between NPA and the promoters of the project.
