APM Terminals West Africa Container Terminal Nigeria (WACT), operator of Onne Port container terminal, said it has recorded a major safety milestone by attaining one million man-hours with no Lost Time Injury (LTI) in its ongoing phase two terminal upgrade and expansion.
WACT recently launched a $110 million phase two upgrade, which covers the acquisition of three Mobile Harbour Cranes (MHCs) to bring the number to five; acquisition of 20 Rubber Tyre Gantry Cranes (RTGs); three Reach Stackers; 13 terminal trucks and trailers, an empty container handler, deployment of reefer racks with 600 plugs capacity, paving of the current yard and expansion by 13 hectares, new workshop and new terminal gate complex.
A no Lost Time Injury (LTI) means no employee or contractor sustained injury that resulted in the loss of productive work time. With the success of this ongoing expansion project, analysts believed that the terminal can begin to compete favourably with peers globally for the greater good of cargo owners and port users.
Rutger ten-Thij, senior project manager of WACT, said at a recent event to mark the major safety milestone at the Onne Port, Rivers State that the main goal of the operator is to implement the project safely at all levels without LTI.
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“It is not only a goal for the project team but also for the workers on site, their supervisors, the management team from Vita Constructions and the entire construction team. We have our families at home and everyone working on the construction site needs to go home safely at the end of the day. A high-rise building is coming up and other safety issues will emerge. It will be challenging but I am confident that together with the contractors, we will achieve that as well,” ten-Thij said.
Prashant Baijal, the chief operating officer of WACT, said the achievement of one million man-hours without Lost Time Injury (LTI) was made possible by the ‘full collaboration between the project team and the construction contractor’.
“At WACT, safety is our license to operate, and Vita Construction understands that very well. Thank you to all the teams working night and day, the bar has been raised, let us take it higher by ending the project without an LTI,” Baijal said.
WACT is the first Greenfield terminal built in Nigeria under the public-private partnership initiated by the Federal Government in 2003. Located in the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone in Rivers State, WACT caters to the greater Port Harcourt area and Eastern Nigeria market, including the oil and gas industry.
Since its inception, WACT has played a pivotal role in successfully connecting the South-South, South-East, North and West Central Nigeria to the global trading community.
