MAERSK's Antwerp-based APM Terminals (APMT) plans to invest US$135 million in further raising the container handling capacity of the group's Apapa terminal in Lagos, Nigeria.
The funds will be used to purchase another 25 hectares to expand the box handling area, and install eight new mobile harbour cranes and 13 rubber-tyre gantry cranes to boost annual capacity from 600,000 TEU to one million TEU by 2015.
"We have done a lot of catching up over the past five years, but we are going to be setting the pace here for West African port operations for the next 50 years," said APMT managing director Dallas Hampton, according to PM News Nigeria.
It said that the company has so far invested $190 million in Apapa infrastructure, new equipment and training since acquiring the container terminal under a 25-year lease in 2006.
Container throughput over this period has more than tripled to 600,000 TEU. Vessel waiting times have been reduced and productivity has quadrupled from six moves per hour to 24, using mobile harbour cranes. This is said to make the facility the largest and busiest of its kind in West Africa, with 485,000 TEU handled in 2010, more than 600,000 TEU in 2011.
Improvements include dredging to 13.5 metres and building 1,005 metres of quay. Three new mobile harbour cranes have just been ordered for delivery in April, which will bring the total number to nine as well as one ship to shore (STS) crane.
"The new expansion project, which will develop the north side of the terminal, will add another eight mobile harbour cranes and 13 RTGs, as well as enhance information technology (IT) and other operations-related equipment," he added.