By Adaku Onyenucheya
Nigeria’s shipping and cargo logistics services provider, Hull Blyth, has opened a rail hub at Wasimi, Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State.
The Wasimi rail hub, which is the first of its kind in Nigeria, will allow shippers to receive import containers from Apapa port and also send export/empty containers to the port.
The Managing Director of Hull Blyth, Christian Holm, who disclosed this in Lagos, said the new rail hub would reduce the high cost of transporting containers to and from the port by road.
He said: “We started this project because we are concerned about the pains shippers go through in moving their boxes in and out of the Apapa port in Lagos due to the congestion on the port access road.
“We are happy to inform all shippers in the southwest and other parts of Nigeria that they no longer have to go through the pains of tracking their containers to Apapa.”
Holm said it was time shippers took advantage of the rail services to relieve themselves of the stress and high cost of road haulage.
He said the rail hub brings several benefits to the trading community and the Nigerian economy, adding that empty containers returned to the Wasimi rail hub would not attract demurrage.
He said the rail hub has commenced full operation, as the first train of both export and empty containers have been successfully delivered to APM Terminals at the Apapa port within only hours of transit from Wasimi.
Holm added that the Wasimi rail hub will also save importers, exporters and agents as much as 50 per cent of logistics costs since it is much cheaper to move goods by train.
He further said the Wasimi rail hub is the precursor to a dry port, which is already under construction, adding that when completed, the dry port, will have the capacity to handle up to 7,000 twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) and will be fully connected to Apapa port by rail.
(Guardian)