Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); Mohammed Bello Koko, has assured that as a build-up to developing a decarbonized port system, the organization is working towards a fully-automated port system, where vehicular and human interface will be reduced.
He gave this hint while addressing chief executives of ports and stakeholders from West and Central Africa at the meeting of Port Management Association of West band Central Africa (PMAWCA), which ended in Luanda, Angola over the weekend.
Recall that the NPA Managing Director had earlier raised the alarm about the high cost implication of decarbonisation and greener shipping and the implication on ports in Africa.
He consequently called for localized solutions to decarbonisation and green shipping.
He disclosed that efforts were already in place, such that by 2024, Nigeria ports would be smart ports, even as he added that the this will reduce carbonization.
“Additionally, by 2024, our port system will be fully automated to enable a paper-smart and less carbon intense operational environment and commuting. This will assuredly add to the port environmental quality enhancement drive”, he said.
According to him, “the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority is in an advanced stage of substituting heavy fuel use in all the terminals port-wide with a much more environmentally friendly liquified natural gas”.
Bello Koko also told the delegates that, Nigeria is leading in efforts to implement the concept of ‘Ports With Acceptable Risk’ (PWAR) as presented in 2019 by Nigeria at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
He explained that, “the concept (of PWAR), asides its capacity for biodiversity protection, has also the potential to decarbonize global shipping through the reduction of the average carbon emissions of ships per ton mile”.
“As an obligatory environmental and regulatory compliant mechanism, the system will also serve as an additional revenue centre for the seaports to ensure the system’s sustainability”, he explained.
Speaking directly on “climate impact on port infrastructure”, the NPA MD acknowledged that ports are susceptible to effect of climate change, which can in-turn impact on port infrastructure.
He explained that, “due to their coastal location, seaports tend to be susceptible to climate variations that could impact primarily on the integrity of the port infrastructure. This consequentially could impact on the logistic value chain for which seaports are critical components”.
According to him, climate change impact management of sea ports; therefore, it should be approached from not just the angle of building port infrastructure resilience, but also logistic chain resilience.
He advised that seaports should not adopt a quick-fix ‘copy and paste’ set of solutions to climate challenges, even as he noted that outsourced solutions are often unsuccessful, because they do not usually consider “ports’ infrastructural designs, environmental contexts and geographical uniqueness, as would home-grown solutions”.
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Stressing further on localized solution, he said that, “a good example of a context-sensitive solution is the case of Ballast Water Management Convention compliance where shipowners are under obligation to retrofit their existing ships with onboard Ballast Water Treatment Systems.
“This mandatory obligation could be said to not be favorable to developing countries in view of the fact that majority of the global merchant fleets, although western-owned, are flagged by developing nations.
“This means that these group of ships (which are in the majority) stand the risk of being blacklisted if they are not retrofitted with type-approved ballast water treatment systems before the deadline for all ship-types by September 2024”.
In view of the challenges, Bello Koko said Nigerian Ports Authority has developed a concept which was presented and approved at the 2019 IMO MEPC 74 meeting, proposing that these group of ships could be conferred with ‘compliance’ status, even without an installed type approved Ballast Water Treatment System.
He told the delegates that, “the concept entails the treatment of host harbor water in a port-based treatment facility referred to as ‘Pre-loading Onshore Ballast Water Treatment using a greener energy source, thereby reducing the carbon intensity of the ships”.
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