The Nation Newspaper

Tag: shipping

  • ‘Downstream deregulation will promote shipping’

    TOTAL deregulation of the downstream oil sector will spur  growth in the maritime sector, Chief Executive Officer, Petrocam Nigeria Limited, Mr Patrick Ilo has said.

    He said more private refineries would come on stream with attendant multiplier effects on the downstream oil and maritime industries.

    He said deregulation would open doors for investors, adding that the development would lead to improved production of petroleum products in the country.

    Ilo said: “Nigeria is going to have a larger refinery capacity, as well as buoying the activities of vessel owners, when the oil sector is fully deregulated. What will happen in the long run is that the country will not only improve its domestic fuel consumption, but also become a net exporter of fuel.

    “When this happens, the nation’s shipping industry will be able to use many of its vessels to export fuel, couple with the fact that more privately owned shipping companies will come up to take their own share of the gains.”

    Ilo said dereulation would translate to increased foreign earnings.

    He regretted that local shipping firms were not maximising the opportunities in the oil and gas industry, because many of their activities have been contracted to owners of vessels abroad by marketers.

    He said marketers paid millions of dollars to freight fuel into the country, adding that this fund would be kept in-country, once more local refineries are streamed.

    Citing Dangote Refineries, he said the completion of the project this year would open doors for shipping.

    He said the Dangote Petrochemical Refineries has the capacity to produce more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day, adding that it is a good omen for the nation’s oil and maritime sector.

    He said the issue of spending forex abroad, under the guise of importing refined petroleum products would become forgotten, once local refineries start operating.

    According to him, marketers will not be considering  forging a partnership with Vitol and other refiners abroad, when the sector is fully deregulated.

    The Federal Government had approved the building of modular refineries with capacity to produce about 20,000 barrels per day and thereafter increase production.

  • ‘High interest rate killing shipping’

    The Federal Government has been urged to reduce interest rates to enable ship owners upgrade their facilities and compete with foreigners.

    In an interview with The Nation in Lagos, some stakeholders urged the government to build a vibrant investment climate for the sector.

    The former Chairman, House Committee on Legislative Compliance, Mr. Moruf Akinderu-Fatai, said there should be policies to create linkages between the industry and other sectors such as banking and manufacturing.

    He suggested measures like a dedicated institutional financing mechanism for the shipping and maritime sector, a comprehensive maritime regulatory policy, to clearly delineate the role and responsibilities of the government and private sector in the development of the sector.

    The purchase of modern vessels, Akinderu-Fatai, a shipper, said, would provide jobs for millions of Nigerians and restive youths across the country.

    He said there was a need for sustained partnerships between the private and public sectors for effective funding.

    The country, he said, has not enjoyed the commercial benefits of transporting large quantities of cargoes because the local ship owners lacked the capital.

    Akinderu-Fatai suggested that the Federal Government should integrate maritime education and training into the national university system so that Nigerians who interested in seafarers’training could get the necessary education to promote the sector.

    Lamenting the lack of foreign exposure for better performance, he said many operators were bogged down with practical experience, with little or no formal education.

    “There is a need for more government interventions aside the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), to actively encourage the banking sector to support local ship owners to acquire modern fleet, which can sail anywhere in the world,” he said.

    The President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Adetoye, said 60 per cent of the inward and outward-bound sea trade in the West and Central Africa sub-regions passed through the nation’s waterways, calling on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, to assist in developing the industry.

    He said the country needed to expand its merchant fleet because of  the high volume of bulk liquid, gas and dry cargoes that pass through its waterways.

    “The fleet to carry the enormous quantity of cargo is estimated at 200 tankers including combo general cargo vessels and liquefied natural gas vessels, Adetoye said

     

  • Inadequate shipping threatens agriculture export

    Inadequate shipping is threatening the agricultural export, the  National Publicity Secretary,National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Sotonye Anga, has said.

    He said though there was adequate shipping capacity to move other  goods out of the ports, it  was  not so for agricultural produce, especially cashew export.

    He reiterated that there was a misplaced belief that there is adequate shipping to meet the agriculture export.

    Out of the ports, he added that there were inadequate facilities for cashew to be stored and shipped  to avoid their contamination.

    According to him, if substandard logistics adversely affects an export product, for example, contamination by hazardous substances in the same shipment—it will likely be refused entry into abroad.

    He explained that cashew export must reach the customer in a good condition as required and it is mandatory that the produce reaches the buyer at the time needed.

    He explained that in most cases shipment out of Nigeria a does not meet those conditions.

    Despite this challenge, the  President, Cocoa Association of Nigeria(CAN), Sayina Rima, said  there have been strong performances in export  as  operators make efforts to meet shipping schedule to avoid rejection.

    He said cocoa exporters take three-month contracts to allow them enough time to ship the produce.

    He said there was  a need for more collaboration with agriculture to get more products for export.

  • Amaechi urges investors to focus on shipping

    Amaechi urges investors to focus on shipping

    The Federal Government has urged investors in the maritime industry to focus on shipping business and provide services at competitive prices to boost the nation’s economy

    The government has also advised foreign shipping companies and local collaborators to stop imposing additional surcharges on importers without prior consultation with the relevant government agencies to avoid sanctions.

    The Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi  who spoke yesterday at the World  Maritime Day celebration in Lagos also urged investors to take advantage of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fun (CVFF) in order to boost ship building and repair facilities and generate more money for the country.

    He identified non-competitiveness, low level of investment, lack of fund, low implementation and enforcement of existing laws as the major challenges facing the sector.

    To address the challenges facing the sector, Amaechi said the Federal Government  has approved the construction of a Deep Sea Port at Lekki, in Lagos, to complement the existing ports.

    He said the Federal Government is also addressing the multiple challenges in the sector by finding solutions to the issue of capital flight, creation of more jobs for youth, provision of opportunity for sea training of graduate cadets as well as encouraging the resuscitation in the ship building and repairs sub-sector of shipping.

  • Free shipping deal at Dressmeoutlet

    For Fashion lovers who wish to save money and still buy quality and luxurious fashion products now have additional ways to save thanks to a new online fashion retailer’s growth enactment of free domestic and international shipping. This is coming courtesy of fashion and beauty Amazon of Africa known as Dressmeoutlet.

    The organisation is currently offering free shipping for all online orders placed with no minimum order requirements, no items excluded and immediate returns are also free.

    According to the CEO and Founder of Dressmeoutlet.com, Olatorera Oniru customers would get value for the money this season. “We understand how important it is for our customers to realise greater savings in their purchase decisions and we intend to increase customer loyalty and to welcome new customers. All online orders qualify for free shipping with no exclusions.”

    Dressmeoutlet.com is one of Africa’s fastest growing, fashion-focused, quality-focused and customer-centric online retailers. Dressmeoutlet.com retails designer apparel and accessories with over 40% of our products made-in-Africa. Dressmeoutlet.com ships globally with customers in the United States, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and other countries. Now with free shipping, fashion enthusiast/lovers of quality fashion can save even more.

  • Nigeria set to invest in shipping

    Nigeria set to invest in shipping

    The Federal Government is set to invest heavily in shipping and regulate the maritime industry to eliminate substandard ships in the country.

    The government has also promised to invest in capacity building  by equipping Port State Control (PSC) inspectors working in the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and support the agency with  the expertise needed to carry out its core  duties more effectively.

    Speaking at the opening of the regional  workshop on PSC for the West and Central African region organised in Lagos, yesterday, the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, said the government is taking pro-active measure to reduce accident rates and fatalities, loss of property and devastating pollution of the marine environment.

    The workshop, the Minister said, was organised under the framework of the European Union (EU), Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the International Maritime Organisation (EU/ACP/IMO) Project in support of the maritime sector  in West and Central Africa region.

    Amaechi said the high level of maritime activities in the nation’ s territorial waters and the Gulf of Guinea,  impose enormous challenges on the Federal Government and other coastal countries in  the West and Central Africa in terms of building a robust and effective maritime safety regime.

    He therefore, directed the PSC Inspectors at NIMASA and the 19 beneficiary countries to use the opportunity provided by the workshop to update their knowledge and enhance the general drive towards building a robust and effective maritime safety regime in the country and the region.

    “As Inspectors of ships for your respective countries, you are all collectively saddled with an important role in the socio-economic activities of your countries and the West and Central African region in general. In that role, you form an important part of the necessary resources required to discharge the responsibilities of your maritime administrations.

    “Ensuring Flag Ship Integrity and international obligations for PSC are important elements in the development of maritime safety. “Your capacity to represent your countries by effectively discharging your duties on ships is critical and should therefore be given the required attention,” he directed.

    The minister said the region is critical in the global supply of energy due to the economic advantages derived from the transportation of low-sulphur crude oil from the region to Europe and North America. He said  the Gulf of Guinea remains an important maritime route for commercial shipping from Europe and America to West, Central and Southern Africa.

    While noting that countries under the Abuja Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on PSC accounts for a significant volume of seaborne cargo to and from African, he implored all participants at the workshop “to take the engagement seriously, remain focused and avail yourselves with the unique opportunity to secure in-depth understanding of the presentations to be delivered by the resource persons.”

    In his address, the Acting Director-General of NIMASA, Pastor Haruna Baba Jauro said he was happy to see participants from Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau. Liberia, Mauritania, Sao Tome, Principe, Senegal and Sierra Leone at the workshop.

    He said huge investments are needed in human and capital resources to perform PSC inspection effectively and creditably, adding that the dearth of qualified marine professionals is a global phenomenon affecting most countries of the sub-region.

  • ‘Shipping industry remains a cash cow’

    ‘Shipping industry remains a cash cow’

    The shipping industry has the potential to boost the nation’s gross domestic product far above the crude oil if well harnessed.

    Making this submission is Mr. Temisan Omatseye, a former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigeria Ship owners’ Association (NISA) presidential aspirant.

    Speaking against the backdrop of the parlous state of the shipping sub-sector in the last few decades, the Chairman of Polmaz Limited, said: “Snail pace is even better. Do you know what, this industry can turn around in just 24 months? But the administration has to be right, ship owners has to be ready, I think the policies I have which I already started running by the agency and the government are in line. If I am able to get there, I know the way money moves.”

    Omatseye who heaped the blame for the diminishing fortunes if the sector on bad policies, said: “It was just a silly policy by CBN, whereby they said that you cannot apply for the letter of credit unless the vessels come from abroad. What that simply does is that, mother vessels that use to come to Lagos is now stopping at Lome. All STS operation is done by Lome mother vessels that go to Lome and pays a fee to the Togolese government. In addition to that, most of those cargoes are actually coming to Nigeria, so what we now do is send vessels as daughter vessels to the mother vessel to pick the cargoes and that costs money.

    “If that mother vessel has berthed in Nigeria, it would have been cheaper for daughter vessel to take cargoes from Lagos to Port Harcourt than from Lome to Port Harcourt as obtained today. Government is now losing money by sending daughter vessels to Lome to bring cargo to either Lagos or Port Harcourt. Mother vessel will pay, daughter vessel will pay, and cabotage will collect. That is the kind of money we are losing.

    “If you go to Lome now you will see like over 100 vessels there, Lagos is about 143, so tell what kind of business is Lome doing that is having so much vessels anchoring there whereas it is not happening in Lagos.”

    On the way forward, the former NIMASA boss said: “We need to go and sit down with CBN and explain that to them. Also, why is CBN giving sector funds to Aviation and not to Maritime? If a plane crashes, because of the CNN News, they will now give all airline operators something but if a ship sinks with crude oil or products the impact of that is 25-30 years. Look at what happened with Exxon or NNPC when their pipe leaks. So it is more in the interest of the government to fund the Maritime Industry even as it relates to safety.”

  • China rejects shipping alliance

    China has rejected a shipping alliance initiative aimed at saving the industry money, despite approval from the US and the EU.

    The “P3 Network” was intended to operate in a similar way to code-sharing deals between airlines.

    The idea was to allow the world’s top three container-shipping operators by volume to cut costs by sharing ships and port facilities.

    A successful alliance would have seen about 250 ships participating in P3.

    The idea, announced last year, came from a proposed collaboration among three shipping groups: Maersk from Denmark, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) from Switzerland and CMA CGM from France.

    The network was supposed to begin operating in the second quarter of this year, subject to approvals from various authorities including China, US and the EU.

    The US Federal Maritime Commission approved the alliance in March, while EU competition authorities said earlier this month they would not raise any anti-trust issues in connection with the deal.

    However, China’s Ministry of Commerce has now rejected the tie-up.

    Maersk said in a statement: “The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) of the People’s Republic of China announced that they have not approved the P3 Network. The MOFCOM’s decision follows a review under China’s merger control rules.”

    China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua said the commerce ministry rejected the alliance “due to monopoly concerns”.

    According to various publications, the P3 Network would have positioned the three partners to control up to 40 per cent of all cargo capacity along three trade routes: Asia to Europe, trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic.

    The shippers had agreed to deploy about 250 ships between the three of them and share capacity of 2.6 million containers along the busiest sea routes.

  • Congestion looms over arbitrary port charges

    Congestion is looming at the ports over arbitrary charges by shipping companies and terminal operators.
    Importers are worried that if the trend is not checked, it may kill business at the ports.

    The importers alleged that the charges do not conform with international standard.

    They blamed the concessioning of the port to private owners for the development.

    Investigation showed that some of the terminal operators collect between N4,000 and N5,000 on a container per day, while shipping companies charge as much as N8, 800 per day.

    The implication of the charges, importers said, is that if a container stays for 10 days at the port, they may be forced to pay as much as N200,000 to clear their goods.

    President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGGAF) Mr Eugene Nweke, said the arbitrary charges had become a recurrent decimal at the ports.

    Nweke said the seven per cent port levy being imposed on the shippers was meant for the concessionaires to put the port in shape.

    “Since the concession of the port about six years ago, shippers still pay the seven per cent port levy, which is an arbitrary charge,” he said.

    He said Terminal Handling Charges (THC) were supposed to be paid by the shipping companies to the terminal operators.

    “Terminal handling charges had been charged and paid by the carriers to the terminal operators, but the terminal operators still come back to collect the charges from the shippers,” he alleged.

    He said the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) had the mandate to publish charges and urged them to do so from time to time.

    Chairman, Shipping and Logistics Services Limited, Mr Johnson Adebayo alleged that there are formal and informal charges at the ports, adding that the informal charges are more than the formal charges.

    He said the single window system introduced by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) may solve the arbitrary charges in the industry if other stakeholders at the ports key into the programme.

    Adebayo urged the Federal Government and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to find a lasting solution to the problem of arbitrary charges.

    National Co-ordinator of Save Nigerian Freight Forwarders Mr Chiazo Peter told The Nation that there was need for the NSC to operate independently, based on the law that established it.

    “NSC should be the voice of the sector, because they are the shippers. They have the right to regulate charges levied on import and export,” he said.

    A clearing agent, Mr Kayode Ogunsanu blamed the council for not carrying out its mandatory function on regulation of charges by the shipping companies.

    Ogunsanu said the terminal and shipping charges paid by importers did not conform with international standard.

    Executive Secretary, NSC, Capt. Adamu Biu, said the charges had become a problem in the sector, and that the council was studying it to come out with a recommendation to solve the problem.

    He said issues of shipping charges, terminal and container charges would be looked into.

  • Shippers, trawler owners cry out over piracy

    The Shippers Association of Lagos (SAL) has cried out over the rising insecurity on the waterways.

    The waterways, it said, had become a haven for robbery, urging the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to secure the terrain.

    SAL General Secretary Mr Jonathan Nicol said NIMASA must collaborate with the law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem.

    Nicol urged NIMASA to do more to secure goods and ships on waterways.

    “NIMASA should use helicopter regularly to checkmate these pirates and also seek the protection of the Navy, Customs and the police on the issue.

    “If the Federal Government fails to do this, it means we are going to lose so much revenue from that sector,” Nicol said.

    He said the loss of lives and rising attacks by armed robbers and pirates on Nigerian waters compared to other West African countries, was regrettable.
    “We have had quite a lot of complaints from fishermen that they were being raided by pirates, some have lost their lives and one of the two fishing companies has left Nigerian shores to Ghana.

    “Ghana is doing very fine; it has quite close to 100 fishing trawlers, operating within her territorial waters,” Nicol said.

    The Trawler Owners Association (NITOA) has suggested radar and satellite technology as part of the measures NIMASA should look into in finding a solution to the problem.

    The President of NITOA, Mr Joseph Overo, and the former president, Mrs Margaret Orakwusi, called on the National Assembly to urgently look at the Anti-Piracy Bill before it as many indigenous companies have been crippled and many children orphaned because sea pirates activities.

    A representative of the Directorate of Fisheries, Mrs Bola Kupolati, identified radar technology and effective information sharing as the solution to the incessant high-jacking and robbery of shipping trawlers and oil vessels.

    She lamented that trawler owners have been discouraged from reporting cases of attacks on their vessels because nothing has been done by NIMASA and the Nigerian Navy about the cases so far.

    The number of reported cases is not correct as many fishing companies have stopped reporting because of the attacks while many have been run out of business with the frequent attacks.

    “Nigeria’s food security is being affected; our foreign exchange is being affected because these activities lead to capital flight as more foreign vessels now do most of the jobs,” she said

    But NIMASA’s Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Hajia Lami Tumaka, said the agency was addressing the security challenges on the waterways.

    She said NIMASA was discussing with Nigcomsat Nigeria Limited for the integration of NIMASA into its satellite information to secure the waters.

    Hajia Tumaka added that the agency had initiated some interim measures to enhance security within and outside the nation’s territorial waters.

    She said the agency was working with security agencies such as the Air Force, Navy, Army and Police to ensure that the waterways are safe for freighting and fishing.

    Mrs Tumaka advised trawler owners to ensure that they pay adequate attention to the remuneration of their crew because many are badly paid, noting that poor pay usually leads them into criminal activities, such as selling their first catch at sea and subsequently drawing the attention of pirates.