APAPA, Nigeria — APM Terminals Apapa was named the winner of the 2012 Terminal Operator Award by the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria at their annual Maritime Excellence Awards ceremony. APM Terminals Apapa, which assumed operational control of the facility in 2006, is now the busiest container terminal in West Africa, with an estimated throughput of 720,000 TEUs this year, up from 650,000 TEUs in 2011.
“This recognition by Nigeria’s maritime journalists is a great honor for our operation and for the nearly 1,000 Nigerians working at APM Terminals Apapa who have worked so hard to achieve this great success” stated APM Terminals Apapa Managing Director Dallas Hampton.
The event was held on December 11th in Apapa, Nigeria’s primary port serving the Lagos area and was attended by representatives of Nigeria’s Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar and the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority, Mallam Habib Abdullahi.
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”. APM Terminals Apapa was also named “Best Terminal Operator of the Year” in the 2009 award ceremony.
With the investment of $200 million USD 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 24 moves per hour. APM Terminals CEO Kim Fejfer noted during a terminal visit last May that the Apapa operational standards have reached parity with European facility operations.
APM Terminals Apapa has announced plans for a further $130 million expenditure over the next three years, including the purchase of eight new mobile harbor cranes and 13 Rubber-Tire Gantry Cranes (RTGs), which will 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.
“Our investment in Nigeria is by no means limited to land and equipment, but encompasses our most valuable asset, the Nigerian people themselves” observed Mr. Hampton, who noted that APM Terminals Apapa sponsored 50 local scholarships in 2012, and funded the refurbishment of a local secondary school, including the installation of new computers.