Investigation carried out by Shipping Position Daily have revealed that shallow draft at ports and channels, insecurity, collapsed infrastructure among others are some of the reasons the ‘eastern ports’ of Calabar, Delta, and Rivers have been underutilized.
Shipping Position Daily gathered that importers, who would want to divert their cargoes to the eastern port because of the traffic gridlock at Lagos ports, could not do that due to the dredging challenges, which make it impossible for bigger vessels to access the ports. Another factor is the issue of insecurity at these ports.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of vessels that berthed at the Delta port fell from 609 in 2013 to 433 in 2016, while the Gross Registered Tonnage at the port also dropped from 8,687,160 in 2013 to 6,177,809 in 2016.
However despite the drop in number of vessels to the port, operators are investing in anticipation of cargoes from Lagos port due to the traffic congestion at the Apapa and Tin Can Port
For example the West Africa Container Terminal (WACT), a terminal operator at the Onne port reportedly invested approximately $3.5million in various containers handling equipment like; 5 reach stackers, 2 empty handlers and 14 terminal trucks in the last three years to render better service delivery.
You will also recall that last year SIFAX group a conglomerate in the Aviation, Maritime Oil and Gas industry, emerged the preferred bidder to operate Terminal B, Warri Old Port.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), announced that SIFAX (Ocean and Cargo) offered the sum of $25,510,000.64 to emerge the preferred concessionaire after its rival-Ecomarine Consortium- was disqualified for improper submission of its bidding documents. The concession is for a period of 25 years.
In a chat with the Corporate Affairs Manager SIFAX Group, Mr. Muyiwa Akande, on why the company decided to invest so much on the old Terminal B port, despite the low patronage of the port, he said the company is optimistic that the port will be worth the investment, even as he assured that the port will be officially opened before the year runs out.
“Talking about our investment in Warri port, we believed that the industry needs more investment particularly towards those that are outside of Lagos because it is clear to everybody that more than 90% if not more of the traffic comes through Lagos port. And there are other opportunities elsewhere and that was why when the opportunity for auction intention came, we bided and eventually was declared the preferred bidder
As of now, we are still working on the terminal we are yet to open officially, so we might not be able to say these are some of the challenges, but we are very optimistic, if we are not sure we won’t have bided, but definitely this year we are opening and they have been a lot of enquiry potential client that are waiting for us to start”, he said.
In a chat with an executive of Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) over the weekend, they observed that the major reasons the eastern port have been under low patronage is as a result of low tide, insecurity and other excuses that are not insurmountable.
The technical Committee Chairman of the association; Dr. Lucky Akhiwu said “I was in the panel in the National assembly and our conclusion was that the presentation from agencies of government, Navy, Federal ministry of transportation, Shipowners all the association and one thing is that 97.5 percent of the reasons were just excuses”
“They are giving excuses and one of the reason was that the Koko port has low tide, the tide is low and in an attempt to dredge, they can’t dredge far because we have all the pipelines laid across that span across Koko, Escravos, open river to the Atlantic, so they see this as a problem. I am an engineer by profession, and the solution is that the pipelines should be rerouted we have equipment in Warri, Port Harcourt and Lagos that can be used.
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