APM Terminals Apapa was penultimate Thursday night honoured with the Maritime Excellence Award of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) at the association’s 25th Anniversary Gala Night/Awards held in Lagos.
APM Terminals Apapa, which assumed operational control of the facility in 2006, is the busiest container terminal in West Africa, with an estimated throughput of 720,000 TEUs this year, up from 700,000 TEUs in 2012.
Managing Director of APM Terminals Apapa, Mr. Andrew Dawes, described the recognition by Nigeria’s maritime journalists as a great honor for the company’s operation and “for the nearly 1,000 Nigerians working at APM Terminals Apapa who have worked so hard to achieve this great success.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, who was represented at the event by the Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Mr. Hassan Bello, described the maritime journalists as the “bedrock of the Nigerian maritime industry.”
“The maritime press has not only kept us on our toes over the years, they have become keen agenda-setters for all stakeholders. I congratulate the members of MARAN on this anniversary celebration. I also congratulate all the award recipients and charge them to continue to develop our shipping sector,” the Minister said in his address at the event which had Nigeria Customs Comptroller General, Dikko Abdullahi’s representative, Assistant Comptroller General Tahir Musa, and several other dignitaries in attendance.
Established in 1988, the purpose of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) “is to objectively report activities in the shipping sector in totality and also the activities of all ministries, departments and agencies of government involved in the country’s import and export business”.
With the investment of over USD200 million in new equipment and upgrades at Apapa since 2006, APM Terminals Apapa has eliminated vessel waiting times of up to 40 days common in 2006 – as yard expansions and other improvements have been implemented, raising productivity from 6 moves per hour to the current average of more than 45 berth moves per hour for the largest vessel.
In October, APM Terminals Apapa took delivery of 10 new Rubber-Tyre Gantry Cranes (RTGs) as part of a fresh USD130 million expenditure for its Phase 3 expansion which includes expansion of the yard to increase annual throughput capacity to one million TEUs. The terminal is the largest mobile crane-operated facility in West Africa with nine, and one of the only facilities in the region able to accommodate the new 4,500 TEU capacity West Africa-Max (WAFMAX) vessels now entering into West African service.
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