Maersk targets ports building in Africa, in attempt to improve its services on the continent. The company is seeking for expansion and building of ports in Nigeria and Kenya, which will strengthen its positions in Africa and will increase the market size for its services. Currently A.P. Moller Maersk is working on 1 billion USD development of Ghana’s Tema port in collaboration with the west African nation’s ports authority, which includes construction of four new berths and quadruple of port capacity. Also the company is working over the 500 million USD project for building of second container terminal in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, which should be operational in 2016.
Meanwhile, the company is in final stage of signing the contract for building of new port in Badagry, Nigeria. The project might reach 2 billion USD in terms of investment. According to the company officials the first stage of building the new port should start this year. Badagry port will handle not only containers, but also oil, break-bulk and offshore.
“We are actively looking in East Africa for opportunities. There is an ongoing tender process for the port of Mombasa, where APM Terminals has shown interest”, said the vice president of Maersk for Africa – Lars Reno Jakobsen. “Africa is moving up in the value chain. People can now probably afford things they couldn’t earlier on. Underlying sentiment is positive. You are still seeing quite healthy growth”, added he.
A.P. Moller Maersk sales in Africa are growing with 5-6% per year, following the continent economic growth. The shipments of agricultural products, clothing and textiles are growing, diversifying the trade only of raw materials and oil.
According to the economy analysts the continent will have two-digits growth during the next decade, which might be the main reason big companies to increase their market stake there. Maersk is not the only one company targeting the operations in Africa, as Shell and BP from years are working at the offshore industry and have plans for development of African infrastructure.
