Sam Ikeotuonye
31 January 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, has indicated its preparedness at taking on greater challenges going by the resources at its disposal.
These include highly-skilled personnel, top graded equipment, including tug boats, and safe navigable channels amidst safe and secured environment for the ease of doing business in the nation’s territorial waters.
NPA’s Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman, disclosed this while receiving the Egina Floating, Production, Storage and Off-loading, FPSO, vessel into the Lagos harbours after its 90-day voyage from the Samsung Heavy Industries Shipyard Goeje in the Republic of South Korea.
The vessel, weighing over 200,000 tonnes, had arrival and berthed at LADOL Free Trade Zone, FTZ, in the Lagos harbours.
Usman stated that the successful receiving of the vessel was an attestation to the readiness and improved operational efficiency of the authority in handling vessels of any size within the Nigerian territorial waters.
Assuring maritime stakeholders and the general public that the government would continue to provide enabling environment for oil and gas activities to thrive through the ports, she said: “We promise to support the growth of trade relations by collaborative efforts with clients who aspire to land their cargoes directly at the free trade zones”.
She informed the gathering that the NPA management would in the coming months improve in the area of capacity building and infrastructural development with a view to providing a better environment for improved customer’s efficiency in the ports across the country.
Earlier in his welcome address, Mr. Nicholas Teraz, the Managing Director Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, the promoters of the Egina FPSO, affirmed that the arrival of the Egina FPSO was an indication of human and capacity potentials in Nigeria.
