Business
GHOST BERTHS AND EMPTY DEPOTS: HOW THE DANGOTE REFINERY AND FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ARE RESHAPING NIGERIA’S ECONOMY — AND DEVASTATING THE DOWNSTREAM SECTOR
GHOST BERTHS AND EMPTY DEPOTS: HOW THE DANGOTE REFINERY AND FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ARE RESHAPING NIGERIA’S ECONOMY — AND DEVASTATING THE DOWNSTREAM SECTOR
By Oghenewoke Onoriode| Maritime & Energy Correspondent | March 15, 2026
THE VIEW FROM THE CREEK
A boat tour along the Lagos creeks and lagoon this week paints a picture few government economists would want to acknowledge. The berths that once teemed with product tankers — vessels loaded with imported petroleum offloading into an armada of tank farms along Creek Road, Kirikiri, Apapa and the Ojo waterfront — now sit idle. The vessels are gone. The jetties, quiet. And in what may be the most dramatic commercial signal yet, dozens of tank farms that once formed the backbone of Nigeria’s petroleum distribution value chain are now listed for sale.
This is the new reality of Nigeria’s downstream sector — a sector caught between two seismic forces: the removal of the fuel subsidy in May 2023 and the full ramping up of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
THE REFINERY: AN INDUSTRIAL COLOSSUS WITH A DISRUPTIVE WAKE
The Dangote Refinery, located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, finally reached full operational capacity of 650,000 barrels per day — the world’s largest single-train refinery — marking an important milestone in Nigeria’s efforts to cut reliance on imported fuel. By January 2026, it was supplying 62% of the country’s Premium Motor Spirit, overtaking fuel importers for the first time in the country’s history.
Projections indicate the country could save up to $10 billion annually in foreign exchange previously spent on fuel imports, with petrol imports falling by more than 54% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 as local supply increased. Beyond the domestic market, diesel and jet fuel shipments have reached Ghana, Togo, and Cameroon, positioning the facility as a regional export hub.
But every revolution has its casualties, and the casualties along the Lagos waterway are visible and verifiable.
TANK FARMS FOR SALE: THE EVIDENCE ON THE WATER
The evidence is not anecdotal. It is documented in hard numbers, in regulatory data, and in property listings that any journalist can verify today.
No fewer than 70 tank farm owners have been compelled to cease operations, leaving their facilities abandoned and idle as retailers and station owners increasingly bypass the storage facilities. These dormant farms represent 65% of the total 120 approved facilities, with operators turning to alternative trucking options instead.
On Nigeria Property Centre alone, 48 tank farm properties are currently listed for sale, with facilities in Kirikiri, Dockyard Apapa, and surrounding maritime zones — some priced at ₦18 billion each — offering private jetties, multiple loading gantries and Certificate of Occupancy titles. These are not speculative land plots. They are fully operational, licensed petroleum storage facilities now without a buyer.
The business closure was primarily driven by the removal of the fuel subsidy, which led to a 488% increase in petrol prices, affecting the purchasing power of fuel marketers and fundamentally changing the economics of tank farm operations.
AN INDUSTRY BUILT ON IMPORTS — NOW STRANDED
The import data tells the full story of why the berths are empty. Bloomberg, citing data from analytics firm Vortexa Ltd., reported that fuel shipments into Nigeria stood at approximately 110,000 barrels per day in the first weeks of 2025 — the lowest since 2017, when imports regularly exceeded 200,000 barrels per day and sometimes reached 400,000 bpd.
By early 2026, the collapse had deepened further. Shipping data from Kpler showed petrol imports into Nigeria fell by more than half in February 2026 to around 50,000 barrels per day — a drop of nearly two-thirds compared with the same period the previous year.
As CORAN, the Coalition of Refineries and Associated Industries, noted in January 2026, Nigeria’s downstream sector for much of the past 30 years was shaped by an import-led trading model — one where fuel importation became profitable due to price differences, access to foreign exchange, and subsidy reimbursement systems, with no reinvestment into refining capacity. That model is now obsolete.
The diagnosis from industry insiders is frank. Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho, Chairman/CEO of Integrated Oil & Gas and CEO of Genesis Shipping, warned that “Job losses and slump in investment is bound to happen if tank farm owners are no longer being able to sell.”
He did not mince words on the scale of disruption: “What is happening currently in the downstream sector is something we have never seen before. It’s a complete emasculation of a class of business people.”
THE SUBSIDY REMOVAL: THE ACCELERANT
Layered onto this structural disruption is the shock of fuel subsidy removal. On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu declared in his inaugural speech that the subsidy was gone. The result was a petrol price hike of nearly 488% in Africa’s largest oil producer by October 2024, with electricity costs also rising multifold because more than 58% of Nigerian households — off the national grid — rely on petrol and diesel generators.
Research presented at a stakeholders’ dialogue in Abuja by Mohammed Shuaibu of the University of Abuja found that poverty rose from a baseline of about 50% to 63% after subsidy removal, before moderating slightly to 56.2% when limited cash transfers were introduced. The national poverty gap — measuring the depth of poverty — also widened from 31.6% to over 45%, meaning many poor households became even poorer.
The human sentiment data from Afrobarometer’s March 2025 national survey is equally stark. More than nine in ten Nigerians (93%) say the country is going in the wrong direction. Nearly nine in ten (88%) describe the country’s economic condition as “fairly bad” or “very bad.” Three-fourths report poor personal living conditions, and 95% say they or someone in their household went without a cash income at least once during the previous year. A large majority — 85% — disapprove of the government’s decision to remove the fuel subsidy, and 58% say it should be reinstated even at the cost of reductions in health or education spending.
A TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES
The paradox is glaring. At the macro level, Nigeria is being celebrated. The refinery is generating foreign exchange, stabilising the naira, and exporting fuel to markets from West Africa to the United States. At the micro level, millions of Nigerians cannot afford to eat. The World Bank projects 139 million Nigerians will be living in poverty by the end of 2025 — a nearly 60% increase from 87 million in 2023.
A 2024 Afrobarometer survey found that 62% of Nigerians believe the removal of the petrol subsidy has worsened their living conditions, while only 18% think the savings are being used effectively.
Meanwhile, along the Lagos waterways, the human cost of creative destruction is written in rusting jetties and “For Sale” signs on facilities that once employed dockhands, surveyors, product inspectors, clearing agents, vessel operators, and thousands more in ancillary maritime services.
MONOPOLY CONCERNS IN THE DOWNSTREAM
The restructuring has also raised legitimate concerns about market concentration. An operator who sought anonymity expressed concern over the direction of the sector: “The NMDPRA has not issued any licence for petrol imports this year. Dangote is gradually enjoying a monopoly in the downstream, and we all know that this is not healthy for any sector.”
The NMDPRA noted that a sharp reduction in imports caused overall fuel supply to decline significantly in February 2026, recording a drop of 25.4 million litres per day due to the sudden fall in imports — suggesting the market may not yet be ready for a single-source supply model.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Aliko Dangote has initiated plans to expand the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, which would further consolidate the facility’s dominance over Nigeria’s fuel supply chain.
Industry voices are increasingly proposing a structural separation of functions: the Dangote Refinery should refine and sell through ships to tank farm owners, who in turn distribute to retail outlets by truck — preserving the role of existing storage infrastructure. Without such a framework, the emptying of Lagos’s berths is likely to continue.
For now, as one moves through the Lagos creeks and lagoons, the answer blowing in from the idle berths is unambiguous: the transformation of Nigeria’s energy economy is real, historic, and irreversible — but for the workers, marketers, and investors built on the import model, no managed transition plan yet exists.
Business
NIMASA to Launch Mandatory Registration Portal to Curb Foreign Takeover of Nigerian Shipping Agents Business
NIMASA to Launch Mandatory Registration Portal to Curb Foreign Takeover of Nigerian Shipping Agents Business
By Okeoghene Onoriobe, Waterways News Correspondent, Lagos
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has announced plans to establish a dedicated Shipping Business and Registration Unit at the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, as part of measures to end the growing foreign encroachment into shipping agency operations — a sector long reserved for Nigerian indigenes.
NIMASA Director-General, Dr. Dayo Mobereola, disclosed this during a stakeholders’ engagement meeting organised by the Ministry in Lagos on Thursday.
Dr. Mobereola said the agency had observed with grave concern the increasing penetration of foreigners into aspects of ports and shipping business that are exclusively meant for Nigerian operators, including shipping agency and freight forwarding services — sectors where indigenous practitioners have long raised alarm.
“We need to establish a mandatory registration and licensing portal for Nigerian shipping agents. They would be the only ones with the rights to operate in the Nigerian shipping industry,” the NIMASA boss declared.
He added that the agency had also uncovered a troubling pattern where foreign nationals were registering companies through Nigerian fronts to circumvent existing rules.
“We noticed that these foreigners are registering companies with the assistance of Nigerians. The purpose here is to eliminate such acts and help us develop the Nigerian shipping sector — most importantly the shipping agents sector — to make it more economically friendly and create jobs for Nigerians,” he said.
Dr. Mobereola confirmed that the new department would be established soon, pending approval from the Honourable Minister of Marine and Blue Economy.
The proposed unit is expected to bring structure and legal clarity to a space that industry stakeholders say has been undermined for years by the activities of foreign interests — often operating covertly through proxy arrangements with local collaborators.
Waterways News gathered that the move has been broadly welcomed by indigenous shipping practitioners who have consistently called on regulatory authorities to enforce indigenisation policies in the maritime sector.
Waterways News — Nigeria’s Foremost Maritime Industry Publication | www.waterwaysnews.ng
NPA BOSS: PORT CONCESSION RENEWALS DELAYED FOR THOROUGH REVIEW, NOT NEGLIGENCE
Dantsoho says flawed agreements could create bigger problems; urges ICD operators to adapt to changing market realities
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News Correspondent, Lagos
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has broken its silence on the prolonged delay in renewing seaport concession agreements, attributing the hold-up to an ongoing comprehensive review designed to strengthen contractual frameworks and shore up investor confidence.
Speaking to maritime journalists in Lagos, NPA Managing Director Abubakar Dantsoho said the Federal Government is deliberately prioritising the correction of structural deficiencies in existing agreements before any renewals are approved — a signal that the administration is unwilling to repeat the contractual pitfalls that have dogged Nigeria’s port sector for nearly two decades.
Background: Contracts Running Out
Nigeria’s seaports were handed over to private terminal operators in 2006 under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with concession agreements ranging between 10 and 25 years. With many of those contracts now expired or expiring, uncertainty has deepened across the terminal operating community, with concessionaires growing increasingly anxious over the absence of fresh agreements.
“Get It Right” — Dantsoho
Dantsoho acknowledged the frustrations of terminal operators but held firm that quality must take precedence over speed. Both the NPA and concessionaires, he said, have identified unmet obligations on various sides — issues that must be resolved upfront to prevent costly disputes down the line.
“The focus is to get it right. A flawed agreement could create bigger problems later, while a well-structured one will provide long-term stability,” the NPA chief stated.
He also pushed back against the notion that slow processing undermines investor appeal, arguing that serious investors value legal clarity and contractual certainty far more than the pace of execution. A rigorous review, he noted, could even attract fresh investors should any existing operators choose not to renew.
ICD Operators Told to Restrategise
On the question of inland container depots (ICDs) and bonded terminals, Dantsoho issued a pointed advisory: adapt or risk irrelevance. He noted that while such facilities were critical pressure valves during periods of severe port congestion, the progressive easing of gridlock at Nigeria’s major ports has begun to erode the commercial rationale for their current operating models. Operators, he warned, must restrategise to remain competitive in a shifting maritime landscape.
NIGERIA WATCH: What this means for terminal operators, freight forwarders, and port stakeholders
The NPA’s position on concession renewals has far-reaching implications for virtually every layer of Nigeria’s maritime supply chain.
For terminal operators at Apapa, Tin Can Island, and the emerging Lekki Deep Sea Port, the delay introduces commercial uncertainty — investment decisions on equipment, berth upgrades, and staffing are difficult to commit to without clarity on tenure. Some operators are believed to be operating on tacit month-to-month arrangements, a situation that discourages capital expenditure.
For freight forwarders and shippers, stability of terminal operations directly affects cargo handling efficiency, tariff predictability, and turnaround times. Protracted uncertainty at the operator level has a downstream effect on the cost of doing business through Nigerian ports.
The NPA’s hint that new investors could enter if existing concessionaires step aside is significant. It opens the door to fresh capital and potentially more competitive terminal management — but only if the review produces the legally watertight agreements Dantsoho is promising.
On ICDs and bonded terminals, the warning is clear: the congestion-driven business model of the past is fading. As the NPA and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) continue to push efficiency reforms, facilities that once thrived on cargo diversion and storage overflow must find new value propositions — whether in last-mile logistics, warehousing, or value-added trade facilitation services.
The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy and NIMASA will also be watching closely, as the outcome of the concession review will set the template for how Nigeria manages its blue economy assets going forward — and whether the country can finally position its ports as competitive gateways in the West African sub-region.
NSW Opens Apapa Support Centre as Digital Trade Platform Goes Live
By Emetena Ikuku, Waterways News Correspondent
LAGOS — The management of Nigeria’s National Single Window (NSW) has established a dedicated stakeholder support centre at 34 Wharf Road, Apapa, following the go-live of the country’s long-awaited digital trade facilitation platform last Friday.
The NSW platform — a Federal Government initiative to consolidate all port-related documentation and regulatory processes into a single digital environment — launched formally earlier in the week before transitioning to full commercial operations days later, marking a significant shift from pilot-phase testing to live deployment.
Support Centre Targets Smooth Onboarding
The Apapa facility is designed to assist port operators, freight forwarders, customs agents and other stakeholders encountering difficulties navigating the new system. Its location on Wharf Road, at the heart of Nigeria’s busiest port corridor, is intended to ensure ease of access for users operating within the Apapa axis.
Beyond physical walk-in support, the NSW management has activated a multi-channel helpdesk offering assistance via telephone, WhatsApp and email to address operational issues and resolve platform inquiries.
Management urged stakeholders to utilise the available support services, noting that effective onboarding is central to realising the platform’s full trade facilitation potential.
Platform Aims to Cut Cargo Dwell Time
The NSW is engineered to eliminate manual documentation bottlenecks by integrating all port clearance, regulatory and compliance processes under one digital roof. Authorities say full deployment is expected to reduce the cost of doing business at Nigerian ports and accelerate cargo throughput — objectives that have long ranked among the priorities of the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.
Nigeria Watch
The go-live of the National Single Window carries direct implications for operators across the Nigerian port ecosystem. At Apapa and Tin Can Island — where manual documentation cycles and fragmented agency interactions have historically inflated cargo dwell times — the platform’s ability to centralise clearance processes could offer meaningful efficiency gains for importers, freight forwarders and terminal operators alike.
For the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), seamless NSW adoption among port users will be a key indicator of whether the digital trade agenda translates into measurable reductions in port congestion and logistics costs. NIMASA, whose regulatory mandate intersects with vessel and cargo documentation, will also have a stake in the platform’s integration architecture.
Freight forwarding associations and licensed customs agents — many of whom remain accustomed to manual and semi-manual clearance pathways — will likely represent the largest onboarding challenge. The placement of the support centre on Wharf Road, rather than at a government ministry or agency complex, signals a deliberate effort to meet practitioners where they operate.
The NSW’s full commercialisation also arrives against the backdrop of broader port reform efforts, including ongoing concession reviews and the Federal Government’s push to position Nigerian ports as competitive West African trade hubs. Whether the platform achieves critical mass adoption in its early weeks will depend heavily on the responsiveness of the helpdesk infrastructure now being put to the test.
Waterways News | Lagos
-
Oil and Gas4 weeks agoTantita’s Pipeline Deal: $144m Contract, Rising Output, and the Questions that Deserve Answers
-
Blue Economy2 months agoNigeria’s Coast Guard Bill: A Solution in Search of a Problem?
-
Business1 month agoCASABLANCA PORT SHUT DOWN AFTER VESSEL LOSES 85 CONTAINERS — SHIP SERVES NIGERIAN ROUTES