The plight of ports at the Nigeria's eastern and delta coastlines may have been compounded by sea robbery and militancy even as some technical challenges linger.

Vanguard Maritime Report investigations reveal that the spate of attacks has not been contained even after seize fire with militants about three years ago.

Consequently, international shipping firms have placed high-risk rating in the freight charges, a situation which has made cost of shipments to the ports uncompetitive.

For example while it costs shipment from China to Lagos would cost about $1,500 same consignments going to Calabar costs between $4,000 to $4,500.

In addition to the cost challenges investigations by Vanguard Maritime Report also indicated some technical short-comings in the ports such as shallow berths and draft deficiency of the channels.

The ports currently have berth depth of between 6 - 11 meters compared to the Lagos port with berth depth ranging from 9 - 13.5 meters.

Standard port berths in other West African countries like Accra, Ghana is 19 metres, Lome, Togo is 16 metres, Cameroon at 16 metres and Cotonou, Benin Republic at 15 metres.

With this technical deficiency the ports at the eastern and delta coastlines would not be able to take size of container-bearing vessels that normally call at standard ports, except for specialised vessels constructed as flat bottom which many international shipping firms have not been willing to use.

The other technical deficiency with the ports, Vanguard Maritime Report investigations show, is that the draught of the channels are below standard.

For the channel leading to the ports, Lagos port has a draught of 13.5 meters, that of Port Harcourt is between 7.1 - 9.1 meters, that of Warri stands at between 6.4 - 7.6 meters, Onne has between 8 - 11 meters and Calabar has 6.4 meters during high tide and 5.4 meters during low tide.



He listed the obstacles to development and utilization of the Eastern and Delta ports including the absence of import and export cargoes, the difficult navigational area and the frequent attacks on vessels forced up the cost of freight by over 150 percent.

Consequently, according to him, while a consignment from China to Lagos would cost about $1,500 same consignments going to Calabar costs between $4,000 to $4,500.