From: Basil Obasi, Abuja
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Thursday, released a Report titled: ‘Shipping and Port Activities’ which reveals the ship traffic statistics at Nigerian between 2013 and 2016.
According to the report, a total number of 19,833 vessels berthed at the various ports while 543,842,425 tonnages were registered in Nigeria between 2013 and 2016.
An analysis of the report indicates that the year 2014 recorded the highest number of vessels berthed as well as tonnages registered while the least were recorded in 2016 while the number of vessels that berthed at all the Ports dropped from 5,369 in 2013 to 4,025 in 2016 while the Gross Registered Tonnage dropped from 146,820,488 in 2014 to 122,186,758 in 2016.
According to the report, the Tin Can Island Port handled the most ships accounting for 33% of total number of ships that berthed in all ports and 32% of total tonnage registered in all ports.
This is closely followed by Apapa port which accounted for 28% of ships that berthed and 25% of total tonnage registered and Onne port which accounted for 15% of ships that berthed and 30% of total tonnage registered.
Also, cargo traffic statistics revealed a total of 312,185,808 cargo traffic was recorded at all Nigerian ports between 2013 and 2016. 196,851,236 or 63% of the cargo traffic were inwards while 115, 334572 or 37% were outward.
The NBS stated that the Apapa port handled the most number of inward cargoes accounting for 39% of total inward cargoes and closely followed by Tin Can Island and Delta ports accounting for 31% and 11% respectively; while Calabar port accounts for 4.29% to record the least.
Similarly, Onne ports handled the most number of outward cargoes accounting for 80% of total outward cargoes and closely followed by Delta and Apapa ports accounting for 10.63% and 3.52% respectively, with Calabar’s port accounts for 0.05% being the least during the period under review.
The number of passenger traffic within the period under was put at 52,262 while the highest number of passenger traffic was recorded in 2013.
Meanwhile, the number of Vessels that berthed at the Calabar Port dropped from 373 in 2013 to 189 in 2016 while the Gross Registered Tonnage which peaked at 4,087,599 in 2015 dropped to 3,803,199 in 2016.
The report further revealed that the total number of Cargoes in and out of Onne Port increased from 24,773,387 in 2013 to in 27,968,861 in 2014 and later dropped to 26,572,745 and 23,450,943 in 2015 and 2016 respectively. While the number of Inward Cargoes also increased from 2,799,136 in 2013 to 3,144,065 in 2014 and later dropped in 2015 and 2016, the number of Outward Cargoes increased from 21,974,251 in 2013 to 24,824,796 in 2014 and later improved to 21,799,671 in 2016.