Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest container shipping line, has secured a 45-year concession to develop a new container terminal at Snake Island Port in Lagos.

The Geneva-based group said it had signed the concession agreement with Nigerdock, the operator of Snake Island Port, and simultaneously finalised an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract with ITB Nigeria Ltd, owned by the Chagoury Group, and Belgium’s DEME Group to build the facility. The investment will push MSC’s total spending in Nigeria past $1 billion.

The project will establish a large container terminal within Snake Island Port designed to handle both deep-sea vessels and barges. Plans show a 910-metre quay equipped with ship-to-shore cranes and mobile harbour cranes, while the terminal yard will initially cover about 30 hectares, with room for further expansion as traffic grows.

MSC said the port will start with a dredging depth of about 16.5 metres, matching the existing navigation channel into Lagos, but the design allows the terminal to be deepened to 18 metres in the future to accommodate larger container vessels.

Plans for the expansion of Snake Island Port were first announced in June 2023 after Nigerdock received federal government approval through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The shipyard reported an estimated $1 billion private sector investment with an additional $850 million in reinvestments. By 2024, Nigerdock and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) finalised an agreement for a new facility on an 85-hectare site within the Snake Island Integrated Free Zone, to feature a multipurpose port with three terminals.

MSC is the first investor. Diego Aponte, president of MSC Group, said the project will help “provide excellent service to customers in Nigeria and throughout Africa, generating many local jobs and significantly increasing economic revenue and resilience.”

Nigerdock projected the development would contribute over $5.2 billion to federal government revenue over the 45-year period.

MSC currently provides freight services at the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, where capacity constraints are significant, and at Onne Port in Rivers State. According to its website, MSC Nigeria moves more than 200,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) per year. (Business Day)