A financial expert and founder of Cowry Asset Management Limited, Johnson Chukwu has said that landing cost of petroleum products at petroleum tank farms has continued to increase because Nigeria does not have a deep-sea port to accommodate large mother vessels at the port.
Chukwu who spoke at a maritime industry workshop in Lagos recently noted that, though there are talks about the establishment of the Lekki Deep seaport in Lagos State and the Ibom Deep seaport in Akwa Ibom State, but according to him, these are projects only on paper because no development is currently going on at these locations.
Speaking on the importation of petroleum products, he said the mother vessels carrying the product stay midstream in neighboring Togo because there is no required draft for them to call at Nigerian ports. He said that small vessels are subsequently used to carry out ship-to-ship (STS) transfer before the product is transported to the tank farms.
He however lamented that the cost of carrying out a ship to ship transfer in Togo is very high, time consuming and a total wastage for the country.
Chukwu who is an expert analyst said that out of the 60% of cargoes destined for Nigerian ports, only 30% of them are actually cleared in Nigerian ports. The other 30% he said is diverted to neighbouring ports of Ghana, Togo, Cote de-Ivore and Cotonou ports.
“Today, all petroleum products imported into Nigeria, the mother vessel cannot come into the country, they berth in Togo, so we had to go and carryout STS, but it is not that we don't have deep-sea across the country”
“The cost of carrying out STS on a mother vessel in Togo is high, if the vessel is destined for Lagos, it would take a day to move from Lagos to Togo, you take the freight insurance of the vessel, at the end of the day when you calculate it, it takes about ten days to sts, take the product and discharge in the tank farm in Nigeria, these are wastages, just because we don't have a deep-sea por
“We have been talking of Lekki Deep-sea port, but we are not aware of the level of construction going on there, I personally I am not aware that construction is going on there”
“In Akwa Ibom, they have talked about Ibom deep-sea port, we are not aware of any construction going on there, we have been talking about this for donkey years”
“If 65% of cargoes coming to West Africa are destined for Nigeria, why are we waiting for Ivory Coast to build the deep-sea port and be the shipping hub in West Africa” he said.
Chukwu said that due to lack of infrastructures at Nigerian ports, there is a long cue of vessels waiting to discharge their content at the ports, while some prefer to discharge at neighboring ports. He described Nigeria as the highest in Africa in terms of ship dwell time at the port.
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