New Nigerian port will take Africa into the big league

Investment in infrastructure is supporting the significant trade growth on the continent, says Dave Everett, Africa key account manager for Safmarine. This involves upgrades of existing ports and in some cases construction of new ports. “The development at the Port of Badagry in Nigeria’s Lagos State is one example of investment into port infrastructure,” he said. At full build-out, the greenfields deep-water fullservice port will be one of the largest in Africa with 7km of quay and 1000 hectares of dedicated yard. It will include state-of the-art facilities for container, bulk, liquid bulk, ro-ro and general cargo as well as oil and gas operations support and a barge terminal. In time this port will have the ability to berth and work the 18 000-TEU EEE class vessels, taking Africa into the big league. “There are developments at the Lekki Deep Sea Port that will also significantly address capacity. This project is expected to be operational by 2017,” he said. With container traffic to Africa expected to grow significantly in the next few years, building the necessary infrastructure is crucial if the continent is to benefit in the long term. “Real efforts are under way to address demand and capacity,” he said. In fact, ports are increasingly vying with each other to grab business as they try to establish transhipment hubs and entice lines to use their facilities. Everett said an increased focus on commodity exports including cocoa, rubber, timber, coffee and cotton was expected while projects typically for the mining, energy, infrastructure and communications sectors were driving imports. “In many ways it has been an exceptionally good year for Africa, with Zimbabwe delivering a bumper tobacco crop and South Africa exporting more apples than ever before to Nigeria,” he said. “The Ebola virus, however, is likely to continue to have an effect in West Africa well into 2015. And we are going to have to monitor the situation very carefully. Both Safmarine and Maersk are maintaining their coverage of West Africa through restructured Europe-Waf strings to accommodate port berthing restrictions.” CAPTION An artist’s rendering of Nigeria’s Lekki Deep Sea Port to be operational by 2017.