Its analysis takes an in-depth look at regional port and terminal developments, throughputs and Annual Trade Capacities for West Africa ports and gives profiles of the major container terminal operators in West Africa.
In terms of service strategy, the consultant notes that there remains a strong emphasis on transhipment but that a shift is underway, mirroring considerable port development activity, towards direct calls.
Further analysis of average vessel capacity reveals that capacities in the Mediterranean Hub and North Europe trade lanes have remained more or less the same, but conversely the Far East trade lane is driving progressive increases in average vessel size – moving from 2,600 teu in 2011 to 3,100 teu in 2013 and up to 4,500 teu in 2015.
New for 2016, Dynamar has introduced the Herfindahl‐Hirschman Index in relation to its analysis of vessel operating carriers to give an indication as to the level of consolidation along the West Africa trades. The Herfindahl‐Hirschman Index is economist-created measure of the size of firms in relation to the industry and an indicator of the amount of competition among them.
Port positioning
Within the port section there is data on annual trade capacities by port, broken down into three main categories: North Atlantic, Gulf of Guinea and South Atlantic.
There is some excellent analysis of the position of international terminal operators in West Africa showing who is involved, where they operate, and including a detailed breakdown by operator of the status/development plans for individual projects.
Among the independent terminal operators APM Terminals and Bollore are shown to have by far the greatest number of terminals. But other operators, such as China Merchants, ICTSI and others, are gaining a foothold in businesses or potential businesses in the region and clearly putting down some strong new competition to the long established incumbents.
A round up of key facts and figures in association with West African container trades details that combined West Africa called ports throughput (all trades) at the end of 2014 was 7.616m teu; while West Africa full container carryings were 3.528m teu. Of this, 635,000 teu were West Africa exports and 2.893m teu were imports, highlighting the containerised trade imbalance in the region. The report is supported by almost 150 tables and figures.