APM Terminals Apapa gets new MD

APM Terminals Apapa Limited, the largest container facility in Lagos, and the busiest in West Africa, yesterday announced the appointment of Martin Jacob as Managing Director, effective June 1st, 2016.

Jacob, who takes over from Andrew Dawes, brings with him extensive experience in the industry from a wide variety of roles held during his 16 years with the AP Moller-Maersk Group, including the past five as the Managing Director of the West Africa Container Terminal (WACT), in Onne, Nigeria.

WACT, which handled 233,000 TEUs in 2015, was named Nigeria’s Best Container Handling and Port Development Company of 2015 at the African Governance and Corporate Leadership awards earlier this year. The award was presented by the Nigerian Institute for Government, Research, Leadership and Technology in recognition of the terminal’s achievements in productivity, investment, innovation and customer service.

“I am looking forward to my new responsibilities at APM Terminals Apapa, and to working closely with our customers, local and national authorities to continue to achieve success and to help facilitate the growth and progress of the Nigerian economy,” Jacob said.

APM Terminals Apapa is the largest container facility by capacity of the three serving Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and business center. It is also the largest container terminal operation in West Africa, having doubled container traffic after concession began in 2006, with dramatically improved productivity.

A $350 million USD investment and expansion program was announced for APM Terminals Apapa since 2006. Container throughput in 2015 was 608,000 TEUs.

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, and the 7th-largest in the world, with a population of 177 million, and is Africa’s largest economy. APM Terminals currently operates the Apapa and WACT facilities in Nigeria, with plans to develop a third at Badagry.

The IMF projects a Nigerian GDP growth rate of 2.3% in 2016 and 3.5% in 2017.