A bigger merchant vessel underway, says Clarion shipping Mgt

By Enyeribe Anyanwu

The Vice President of Clarion Shipping West Africa Ltd, Mrs. Benardine Eloka, has disclosed that her company will unveil its second merchant vessel next month, October. She made the disclosure while presenting “MV Ocean Dragon”, the first fully Nigerian-owned container vessel to importers and freight forwarders at Villa Park Hotel, Amuwo Odofin. 

Mrs. Eloka said the second vessel will be a bigger vessel that will operate from China on direct voyage to Nigeria, cutting off transshipment. “Once you make your booking, your container comes directly to you in Nigeria,” she said.

In the meantime, the company is offering direct shipment from China to local and continental ports, cutting off delays usually experienced in transshipments, as well as the risks associated with road transportation.

She said Clarion is doing this in collaboration with most of the shipping lines operating in Nigeria, such as MSC, CMA CGM, PIL, and Maerskline, saying that anyone that makes a direct booking from China to Nigeria at the moment, “we will send the containers to you. We just put it in any of the vessels that is coming to Nigeria immediately, pending the time our own vessel will begin to load which is scheduled to start from the beginning of next month which is the month of October.”

 Urging the importers, traders and freight forwarders, mainly of Igbo origin that attended the unveiling ceremony, to patronize Clarion shipping, she said one of the objectives of bringing Ocean Dragon was to move made-in-Nigeria products to other African countries. He urged Nigerian exporters to key into the current efforts to promote African trade with made-in-Africa products.

She disclosed that many Nigerian traders across the country have already made bookings to move their made-in-Nigeria products from Nigeria to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

“We know that we have most of the importers and exporters here. If your container lands in Lome, we know the transit time is usually long. Ocean Dragon will be right there to pick them. Instead of leaving them there for weeks Ocean Dragon can under very few hours go to Lome and bring them to Nigeria,” Eloka said.

Corroborating the information about Clarion Shipping’s second vessel, the Regional Manager, South East Nigeria, Mr. Solomon Ogudo, said “We are having another bigger vessel. Ocean Dragon, our first vessel only has 349 TEU capacity and the second vessel we are adding to the fleet has 1,449 TEU capacity. This will enable us to enhance our performance and efficiency, and also get the service to the people at a very affordable and competitive cost.”

Ogudo said Clarion had partnered with major shipping lines while growing up, focusing on the berth services. “We partnered with Maersk and Cosco to move containers to different parts of Africa, and within that period of time, we were able to move over 200,000 TEUs of containers from Nigeria to different parts of Africa. And this is what has given birth to what we are celebrating today –the first owned indigenous shipping container vessel in Nigeria.”

Calling for patronage of Clarion shipping, he said the company offers complete services which are modelled in a way that is tailored to bring solution to the Nigerian maritime industry and beyond, with local innovation.

“Ocean Dragon was a deliberate effort that we have put together for over ten years to solve the logistics problems within Nigerian maritime industry. Lagos might be a bit off the challenges we’re facing, but if you look down the South East and the South South, you’ll know that there are major issues and problems within the industry,” he said.

He told the maritime industry audience: “When you ship with other shipping lines, their major interest is to drop you at the major ports, but if you ship with us, especially from China, you have the benefit of taking your delivery from your preferred destination or location because we have partnership with major players in the industry, like in Kano we have partnership with Dana Port servicing the northern market, in Calabar, we have partnership with Ecomarine, in Onne we have partnership with West African Container Terminal (WACT), and partnerships in other places, and even with shipping lines. And we don’t bother you with container deposits, like other shipping lines.”

Photo: Mrs. Benardine Eloka