Container volume hits 877,737 TEUs as vehicle records 268 units in 2012

Nigerian ports recorded an increase in volume of laden container throughput, empty container throughput and imported vehicle traffic in 2012 as against the previous year, the annual business report of 2012 shows.

A breakdown of this, as contained in statistics released by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), shows that laden container throughput at the ports in 2012 witnessed 7.4 percent growth to 877,737 TEUs compared to 817,246 TEUs recorded in 2011, while empty container stood at 1,575,194 TEUs showing 11 percent increase over 1,413,276 TEUs recorded in 2011.

The statistics further show that imported vehicle traffic stood at 268,026 units, a 16-percent growth over 231,423 units of vehicles that were brought into the country in 2011.

In terms of berth occupancy rate, the report shows 44.9 percent in 2012, a 4-percent improvement on the 44.5 percent recorded in 2011. In the area of safety, Nigerian ports did not record any fire incident in all the ports in the year under review.

“This is an evidence of efforts of the management of NPA in ensuring that the right safety standards are entrenched in all port activities,” the report said.

Habib Abdullahi, managing director of NPA, said the increasing good result being recorded at the ports could be attributed to continuous capital and maintenance dredging as well as the removal of the discovered critical wrecks in the water channels, which have enabled effective vessel navigation, adding that with the support of the Federal Government, the Authority would remain focused in constantly upgrading and improving port infrastructure in order to attract neighbouring countries to transact business with NPA. 

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UZOAMAKA ANAGOR