Lekki Port places strong commitment to global environmental standards

Determined to meet the Q3:2016 scheduled operational takeoff date, the promoters of Lekki deep seaport have successfully completed all market engineering and environmental impact studies of the port, BusinessDay findings have shown.

Also, the port site has been gazetted as port area by the Federal Government while the compulsory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study of the port area has also been fully completed in accordance with the International Finance Corporation (IFC)/World Bank stipulated guidelines.

An environmental impact assessment (EIA), which Nigeria promulgated in 1992, is an assessment of the possible positive or negative impacts that a proposed project may have on the environment.

According to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in 1992, EIA is a national instrument that shall be undertaken for projects that are likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment.

Also, the Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract has been awarded to China Harbour Engineering Company, and the company mobilised its workers and machinery to site in August 2012. The EPC work is already in the last lap of pre-construction investigations as well as site preparation activities.

Lekki Port has engaged the services of leading global consultants including The Louis Berger Group Inc., Delta Marine Consultants, Berger ABAM and TBA Netherlands to ensure smooth and efficient operations, while the container terminal has been sub-concessioned to International Container Terminal Services Inc, Philippines.

The $1.55 billion port investment, which is to be located in the Lagos Free Trade Zone at the Lekki sub-region, is being constructed under the Build, Own and Transfer (BOT) plan and has also been vetted by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).

Confirming the performance stage of the port, Tejaswi A. Vanamali, the project manager, said the container terminal sub-concession has been awarded to International Common User Terminal Operator (ICTSI) focusing on emerging markets. Also, the shareholders’ agreement has been signed between the sponsors, NPA and the Lagos State government. “We are very much on course and in no distant time Nigerians and the entire West African region would witness a revolution in the maritime sector,” Vanamali said.

The strategic location of the port and the optimal layout and modern facilities, he said, provide Lekki port a distinct competitive edge over any other port facility in the West African region.

With the targeted 1.5 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) container capacity annually, which the investor will eventually grow to 2.7 million and 4.5 million TEUs in the future, Lekki port will become the largest port in Nigeria and West Africa at large. The port will be dredged to 16 metres draught and this will allow shipping companies to bring ships with 8,000 to 10,000 TEUs capacity. This means that ships of large sizes will be calling the port and this will enthrone economy of scale, said Haresh Aswani, managing director, Lekki Port LFTZ Enterprise, the major sponsor of the project.

Further findings have shown that the cost of bringing goods into the country will drastically drop if economy of scale is achieved. This is because shipping cost is not just about size but also about fuel consumed in delivering the cargo to the destination port. This will change the whole dimension of how business is done in Nigeria.

“Certainly, large ships help to also achieve environment friendliness because when goods that can be carried by four ships are carried by one (that is four-in-one), fewer ships will be coming into the port and this means use of less fuel. The project will create huge employment opportunities as feeder ships, barges and crafts will be used to take such cargoes to other ports in the country. These were the issues that were factored in during the course of our environmental studies,” Aswani added.

The port, according to him, was conceptualised as a multi-product industrial and logistics hub that would spread across 90Ha of land and shall be built at an esti