By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria witnessed a 4.3 per cent drop in the number of ships that called at the nation’s seaports in the first half of the year 2024 as a total of 251 vessels berthed at the ports between January and June 2024 as the economy faced constraints.
This was contained in a report released by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) after the just concluded quarterly meeting of the Nigerian Port Consultative Council (NPCC) where it was also reported despite the drop in vessel calls, there was a 6.9 per cent increase in Gross Tonnage of ships completed, which was put at 32,614,191 metric tons in the period under review against 30,504, 276 in 2023.
“The cargo throughput excluding Crude oil stood at 21,186,348 metric tons against 18,234,644 metric tons in 2023 indicating an increase of 16.1 per cent.
“Inward cargo traffic reached 13,563,173 metric tons representing a 10.5 of cargo throughput in 2023. Outward cargo traffic was 7,6234,175 metric tons, representing 27.7 per cent.
“Container traffic for the period under review stood at 398,447 between January and June showing an increase of 2.3 per cent from 389,303 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) handled in 2023.
“A further analysis of container traffic revealed that import containers accounted for 3.4 per cent with 198,415 TEUs while export container traffic stood at 195,106 TEUs representing a decrease of 1.2 per cent of total container traffic.
“A breakdown of export container traffic revealed that empty containers accounted for about 36.3 per cent of total export container traffic.
“Vehicle Traffic, a total of 10,991 units of vehicles were handled during the period under review, indicating a drop of 60.8 per cent from 28,024 units in 2023.
“The average turn-around time of vessels was 4.64.6 days, compared with 5.1 days in 2023. The significant improvement in average turn-around time for vessels was brought about by the impact of the Lekki Deep Sea Port which achieved an average turn-around of only one day.
“The increase in Gross Registered Tonnage, GRT despite the drop in the number of vessel calls revealed the berthing of bigger vessels, especially at Lekki Port where the average GRT of vessels is 3,801,191. This further gives credibility to the importance of a deep seaport to the Nigerian maritime or port development.
“Therefore, the collective efforts of all stakeholders are required to ensure that Lekki Deep Seaport does not suffer the same fate as Apapa for ease of cargo evacuation,” the report stated.
