Nigeria’s first deepsea port inaugurated

Nigeria, the most populous nation in West Africa, has its first deepsea port up and running.

The nation’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, was on hand yesterday for the official inauguration of the $1.5bn Lekki Deep Sea Port, with a CMA CGM vessel calling at the new facility in Lagos state a day prior.

The port, in which China Harbour Engineering Company is the lead shareholder, features container, dry bulk and liquid terminals, and is capable of handling boxships of up to 16,000 teu. Featuring three gantry cranes, the container terminal, operated by CMA Terminals, has an annual handling capacity of 2.5m teu, while the tanker site will ultimately be able to handle ships up to 160,000 dwt in size.