Dangote Industries is set to acquire its own vessels as part of efforts to address shipping constraints and reduce the cost of transporting its products to markets across West and Central Africa.
The planned acquisition follows persistent challenges in securing adequate shipping capacity for the company’s exports, while road transportation has proved costly and cumbersome.
The Head of International Trade and Export at Dangote Cement, Sada Ladan-Baki, disclosed this on Tuesday at a seminar on non-oil exports, where she highlighted the logistical challenges confronting Nigerian exporters.
According to Ladan-Baki, Dangote has faced significant difficulties moving products from Nigeria to other West African markets due to limited access to suitable vessels.
She recalled an instance in which the company was unable to secure a vessel to transport a 1,000-metric-tonne consignment from Nigeria to Ghana, despite the relatively short distance between both countries.
“We are moving forward towards getting our own ships in order to do this business,” Ladan-Baki said.
She explained that road transportation was not a sustainable alternative because goods destined for Ghana must pass through neighbouring countries, including Benin and Togo, exposing exporters to additional taxes, levies and other charges.
These additional costs, she said, make Nigerian products less competitive in regional markets and remain a major obstacle to expanding the country’s export operations.
The proposed vessel acquisition comes as Dangote’s businesses become increasingly dependent on maritime transportation, particularly following the expansion of its petroleum operations.
Dangote’s $20 billion refinery in Lagos has significantly increased Nigeria’s seaborne petroleum-product trade. Data from the US Energy Information Administration indicate that Nigeria’s petroleum-product exports by sea have increased sevenfold since 2023, driven largely by increased output from the Dangote refinery.
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The refinery is expected to receive and dispatch about 600 vessels annually, including ships transporting crude oil to the facility and vessels carrying refined petroleum products to domestic and international markets.
Reacting to the development, the President of the Indigenous Shipping Association of Nigeria, Otunba Shola Adewumi, said Dangote had historically relied heavily on foreign-flagged vessels to transport crude oil and refined petroleum products because of the limited availability of Nigerian vessels with the required capacity.
He, however, cautioned that acquiring vessels was only the beginning, noting that their maintenance and management could prove more challenging.
“Dangote is a Nigerian and a businessman, and he is free to do whatever he wants. It is very easy to buy a ship, but maintaining the ship is a different ball game,” Adewumi said.
He urged the conglomerate to register the vessels under the Nigerian flag, arguing that doing so would increase the country’s shipping capacity and strengthen Nigeria’s presence in the international maritime industry.
“We also hope that Dangote will put those vessels under the Nigerian flag so as to add more tonnage to the national fleet and increase Nigeria’s influence in the international shipping community,” he added.
Adewumi said the move could also generate broader economic benefits by creating employment opportunities for Nigerian seafarers and professionals in the shipping, logistics and international trade sectors.
The planned acquisition could therefore represent a major shift in Dangote’s logistics strategy, allowing the conglomerate to exercise greater control over the movement of its products while reducing dependence on foreign shipping operators and expensive cross-border road transportation.
