•To commence coal export

Nigeria’s effort to enhance its foreign exchange earnings received a major boost yesterday in Lagos, with a plan by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) to expand export operations and increase export revenues from fertiliser to $7 million daily ($2.555 billion a year) in the next two years.

The plan was revealed when Africa’s richest man and President of DIL, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, paid a courtesy visit to the NPA headquarters in Lagos.

Dangote said DIL will work with the NPA on the development of the country’s marine and blue economy sector, to ensure expansion of Nigeria’s export operations.

He stated, “We will soon be massively expanding our export operations. For some of you that have been to our cement factory in Itori, we’re already exporting cement out of Nigeria. We have a whole factory of six million tons for cement export. In the next couple of weeks, we will start exporting coal out of Nigeria.

“Our fertiliser export will be almost like eight cargos. The refinery operations will not export less than 25 million tons of various products. We will also export almost 600,000 to 700,000 metric tons of polypropylene. So when you are talking about export, we are going to be very big.

“In the next two years, we will be exporting about 16,000 tons of fertiliser. When you talk about 16,000 tons of fertiliser, it’s about $6.5 million to $7 million in revenue that will be coming into the country daily. With our export programme, our company will be the major supplier of foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria. So the operations of Nigerian ports will double in the next one or two years.”

Dangote explained that as the biggest customer to the NPA, it was important that the interaction between NPA and DIL was sustained.

He added, “We are here to thank the NPA for doing a great job, because as we speak today, we are the biggest or largest customer of the NPA. I think this kind of interaction between us and them is very important for the growth of the industry.

“So, we discussed quite a lot of issues. We also discussed issues of how to deepen the marine and blue economy of the nation.

“And we have agreed to work together for the benefit of Nigeria.  The size of our operation at Lekki alone is going to be almost 240 ships of crude, with each ship carrying one million crude. And then we’ll have products which will now amount to over 600 ships in a year.

“Then we also have our fertiliser operation, which will be loading almost eight ships. This is an operation that has never ever been seen in the country. 

“So, it’s a major challenge. But with the leadership of the NPA, we are very, very comfortable that they’ll be able to deliver.”

Dangote added, “Our operations will sink if NPA doesn’t give us the services we will need for our operations. So, the NPA will be needing a lot of support from the federal government because they won’t be able to do these things with their own hands.

“They need equipment. They need more tug boats. We will also be putting in a few words in the necessary quarters to make sure that NPA gets all the necessary assistance from the federal government.”

In his remarks, Managing Director/CEO of NPA, Abubakar Dantsoho, explained that Aliko Dangote was at the authority to show appreciation for the dividends of the Naira-for-Crude policy of the federal government.

Dantsoho said, “Alhaji Aliko Dangote is here to show appreciation, especially regarding the establishment of the One-Stop-Shop policy on Naira-for-Crude deal, which is being coordinated by the Nigerian Port Authority.

“He’s here to appreciate that the initiative has contributed immensely to achieving a lot of efficiency in the area of transactions and operations between Nigerian government agencies.

“This is something that started on the 1st of October last year 2024, and so far, we have treated or operated over 57 vessels every month.

“The projected volume that Dangote was looking at per annum was 600 vessels. If you do 56, 57 vessels into 12 months, you will see that we are already doing bigger than what they projected. We will continue to do our best with support from government.

“If all agencies of government can collaborate and be on the same dashboard, then efficiencies in other sectors of the economy will also be witnessed. 

“We’re happy that the government has approved the National Single Window. We’re also happy that as of today, we are 95 per cent ready for the Port Community System.”

On development of new ports, Dantsoho said, “There are two ways you can handle capacity improvement/expansion or deepen port capacity. You can do it on a brownfield, which is, you renovate or rehabilitate existing ports; or on a greenfield, which is to build new ports.

“The last time the government built a new port in Nigeria was 1977, which was Tin-Can Island Port. There is already an approval for the port modernisation of both Tin-Can and Apapa ports.

“We are hopefully looking at maybe the third quarter of this year to commence construction. That is on the brownfield.

“On the greenfield part, like I said earlier, we have deep seaport development projects that has already been approved by Federal Executive Council. We have Ibom Port, Bakassi, Olokola, Ondo Port and we have the one at Badagry in Lagos. These are new ports that the government is concerned about. Very soon, we’ll begin to see that these ports will become reality.”