Addressing Badagry Shipyard Project Issues

Sir: The announcement of the plan to build the $1.5 billion ship repair facilities in Badagry, Lagos State has generated a lot of questions, in particular its viability and its location. This piece will throw some lights on these concerns.

First, the purpose of the project. The facilities will be used for the maintenance of a wide range of oil and gas related vessels, including very large crude and gas carriers (VLCCs, VLGCs), offshore drilling rigs, offshore support vessels as well as large LNG carriers. It is also planned to be a hub for dry docking vessels from other West Africa countries.

For every wise investor, the place of a research-backed feasibility study can’t be relegated. A painstaking process was carried out to produce a tested feasibility study. The pre-project technical consultant, Royal Haskoning DHV, took a completely independent approach working from first principles to establish the input for the business plan.

To determine the revenue, Royal Haskoning DHV carried out a market study, using raw data, local and regional, on vessel movements and fleet characteristics. This provided a picture of the total market available to a large ship repair yard situated in Nigeria.

From the range of available vessel types and sizes identified, a coherent target mix was derived that would efficiently utilise the shipyard facilities. The only mandatory ship type to be included in this mix was large LNG carriers. A view was then taken on the proportion of the available market for the coherent target mix that the new shipyard could reasonably expect to capture.

The resulting projected throughput was an average of 12% of the available market across the coherent target mix. The revenue could then be calculated by applying current market repair rates to the projected throughput.

The cost of developing a new large shipyard is dependent on the site conditions. Therefore a search was made of the whole Nigerian coast and inland waterways for a location, which provided the best technical balance of factors including access to deep water, good ground conditions, local workforce, free trade zone, transport links, access to suppliers and contractors.

In addition, the perceived attractiveness of the location for ship owners and investors was taken into account. Royal Haskoning DHV concluded that for the purposes of the feasibility study, Badagry Port should be the selected site to provide data input to the business model.

Following the positive conclusion of the study, the firm was commissioned to manage an open competition to select the Lead Investor to take the project forward. Accordingly, potential investors and developers made written submissions, which were evaluated against a common set of criteria. The successful organization was Badagry Ship Repair and Maritime Engineering Company (BSMEC), a consortium of five Nigerian companies. Although we have been provided with the feasibility study, we do not have any onus to follow its findings. We are free to develop the new shipyard in whatever location and to carry out whatever throughput of business it wishes as long as it includes the capacity to repair large LNG carriers.

I conclude by reiterating the unwavering commitment of BSMEC to bring this concept to reality and use it as a veritable platform to contribute substantially to the Nigeria’s economic growth.

• Laolu Saraki,
BSMEC, Lagos.