– Cargo throughput drops to 6.4% in 2023
Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The global economic downturn has impacted on the Nigerian economy as vessel calls into Nigerian ports dropped by 4.5 percent as a total of 3,778 called in 2023 as against 3,957 vessels in 2022.
Cargo throughput (excluding crude oil) also recorded a drop by 6.4 percent as a total of 70,475,671 metric tons in 2023 against 75,274,853 metric tons in 2022.
In a port performance report presented at the quarterly meeting of the Nigerian Port Consultative Council held yesterday in Lagos, the report also indicated that a drop in Container traffic as 1,566,162 (Twenty Equivalent Units), TEUs in 2023 while 1,681,328 was recorded in 2022, representing a 6.8 percent fall in container traffic.
Although, there was a slight increase in the volumes of cargoes that were brought into the nation’s ports as 122,873,684 ton in 2023 as against 120,368,153 tons in 2022 showing an increase of 2.1 percent.
Parts of the reports: “Container traffic during the period under review stood at 1,566,162 TEUs showing a decrease of 6.8percent from 1,681,328 TEUs handled in 2022. A further analysis of container traffic revealed that import container traffic accounted for 55.85 percent with 874,683 TEUs, while export container traffic stood at 684,586 TEUs representing 43.71 percent of total container traffic.
“A breakdown of export container traffic revealed that empty containers accounted for about 80 percent of total export container traffic.
“A total of 132,293 units of vehicles were handled during the period under review indicating a decrease of 32 percent from 194,550 units in 2022.
“The average turn-around-time of vessels was 4.0 days, compared with 5.1 days I. 2022. It is however worthy to note that the significant improvement I average turn-around time vessel was brought about by the impact of Lekki Deep Seaport which achieved turn-around of only one day.
“The increase in GRT despite drop in the number of vessel calls revealed berthing of bigger vessels, especially at Lekki Port where the average GRT of the vessel is 45,185 compared to Apapa with 30, 565 GRT. This further gives credence to the importance of a deep sea to the Nigerian Maritime or port development.
“Therefore, the collective efforts of all the stakeholders are required to ensure that Lekki Deep Seaport does not suffer the fate of Apapa with respect to ease of cargo evacuation.”
