Worried by the incessant gridlock rocking Apapa metropolis, which houses the nation’s economic gateways, Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports, the Federal Government on Wednesday said that it is perfecting plans to move the controversial tank farms away from Apapa to less busy areas in the country.
Speaking in Lagos at a one-day stakeholders’ breakfast meeting organised by the newly appointed interim economic regulator, Nigeria Shippers’ Council (NSC), Leke Oyewole, the senior special assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on maritime matters, disclosed that the Federal Government has located two new sites in both Ogun and Ondo states for the relocation of the tank farms.
According to him, the new sites in Ogun and Ondo states currently undergoing preliminary feasibility studies as well as due process considerations stages, have the needed deep water drafts, capable of receiving bigger vessels of over 16 meters draught into the tank farm jetties.
The aim, he said, is to reduce the volume of traffic congestions and bottlenecks that impede efficient port operations as well as timely delivery of cargoes to importers’ warehouses. He added that the new plans if actualised would help to enhance ease of operations for both the operators and the port users.
Presenting a paper on ‘Challenges and Prospects of Nigerian Terminal Operators’, Vicky Haastrup, chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), said that the location of tank farms in Apapa is a ‘time bomb’ that is waiting to explode.
“The whole Apapa metropolis is sitting on a time bomb because imagine a scenario, where any of the tank farms gets involved in a fire outbreak, the whole of Apapa would be completely consumed”.
“The situation, which does not only impede efficient service delivery by reducing the volume of cargoes discharged on daily basis by terminal operators, has become worrisome owing to the fact that the Federal Government is giving new operating licences to more operators to build more tank farms in already congested Apapa”, explained Haastrup while speaking with BusinessDay on the sideline.
Haastrup, who doubles as the executive vice chairman of ENL Consortium Limited, noted that the port environment is heavily congested owing to the bottlenecks created by gridlock that results from the competition between tanker trailers that are going to load AGO, PMS at the tank farms and trucks that are also going into the seaport to load containers.
The STOAN boss further urged the Federal Government to handle the issue of tank farm relocation decisively and urgently so as to ease the difficulties seaport terminal operators, port users and other stakeholders are facing at the port.
