Various Nigerian seaports suffered a low turn of business in 2020 as both ship traffic and cargo volumes declined from 80.2 metric tonnes in 2019 to 78.4 million metric tonnes in 2020, representing a decline of 2.24 per cent.
The ports also recorded a decline in ship traffic as a total of 3,972 ships called in 2020 as against 4,251 in 2019.
Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadiza Bala Usman, who gave the figures at a media parley in Lagos, attributed the drop to the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the global economy.
Usman said, “In year 2020, the nation’s busiest port, Apapa Port received 632,148 TEUs of container traffic compared to 668,672 TEUs received in 2019.
“For the nation’s second busiest port, Tin Can Island Port, 650,365 TEUs of containers arrived at the port in 2020 compared to 820,942 TEUs of containers in 2019.
“For Onne port, 266,109 TEUs of containers arrived in 2020 compared to 247,528 TEUs in 2019. In Rivers port, 91,971 TEUs of containers arrived in 2020 compared to 71,020 TEUs in 2019. At Calabar port, 1,561TEUs of containers arrived in 2020 compared to 174 in 2019.
“Delta port suffered a dip in container traffic in 2020 with 1,224 TEUs compared to the 6,827 TEUs it recorded in 2019. In total, the number of container traffic that came to Nigerian ports was 1,643,378 TEUs compared to the 1,815,163 TEUs received in 2019.
“For a number of vessel calls at the Apapa port, 986 ships called in 2020 compared to 1,034 vessels in 2019. At Tin Can port, 1,127 ships called in 2020 while 1,311 vessels called in 2019.
