Nigeria’s Domestic Fleet Goals Progress With Dangote's Expansion Plans
The interest for shipownership in Nigeria is soaring after the government unlocked the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) early this year. In an update last week, Nigeria’s Minister of Marine and Blue Economy Adegboyega Oyetola said that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has so far received 92 applications for the ship subsidy. Of these, 20 have been forwarded to a list of approved lending institutions. Further, one application has been cleared to receive funding.
Oyetola added that to further speed up access, the government has expanded the number of approved banks from five to 12. “The disbursement of the CVFF could help create stronger indigenous fleet, which will in turn stimulate activity in shipyards, maritime logistics and other supporting industries,” said Oyetola.
The update on CVFF access happened at about the same time that the Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote announced his plans for ship acquisitions. Dangote, Africa’s richest person and the owner of refining and cement-making interests in Nigeria, is aiming to build a shipping fleet composed of tankers and dry bulk ships. To finance the vessel orders, Dangote has signaled interest in leveraging CVFF, according to Sada Ladan-Baki, the head of international trade export at Dangote Cement.
While Dangote Group has extensively expanded its industrial operations across the energy, cement and fertilizer sectors, logistics has remained a major pain point for the conglomerate. Some of the initial solutions for the Group include investing in a $100 million truck assembly plant in Ikeja, Lagos state. The plant, which opened in 2024, is a joint venture between Dangote Industries and Sinotruck China. It has capacity to assemble and produce 10,000 trucks annually.
But road transport has its downsides, especially for a company serving regional markets across West and Central Africa. “If we are going to export our cement from Nigeria to Ghana, we have to pay Value Added Tax of 18 percent in Benin. We pay in Togo. We pay another 18 percent if we are going to Ivory Coast. So by the time the trucks get to these places, the taxes these countries charge us have already made us dead on arrival,” said Ladan-Baki.
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Again, with the planned expansion of the Dangote Refinery, there is a strong impetus for the group to invest in seaborne transport. Currently, the refinery has capacity to process seven hundred thousand barrels per day (bpd), and there are plans to double the output in the next five years to reach 1.4 million bpd. At such a scale, Edwin Devakumar, Dangote Group’s vice president for oil, gas and fertilizer, estimated that the refinery will require roughly 1,800 vessel calls annually to ship its products.
Devakumar added that the group has scheduled a visit to China to negotiate with shipbuilders for orders. “The first batch of orders could arrive as early as 2029,” added Devakumar in an address last week to members of the Nigerian Chamber of Shipping (NCS). The Dangote Group is yet to announce the number of vessels it wants to order.
