Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011

DRY DOCK FACILITIES FOR BUILDING AND REPAIR OF MERCHANT AND NAVAL
SHIPS
By
E IJIOMA1 DSS psc(+) ensp FRINA MNSE MIIMS

Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011

Abstract
2.
It is on record and commonly so, that
more than 90% of Nigerias import and export
are by sea and over 80% of Nigerias Gross
Domestic Products (GDP) derive from the sea.
In fact the Nigerian Ports Authority statistics
revealed that 4,962 vessels entered all Nigerian
ports and crude oil terminals in 2010 with a total
tonnage of 108,621,872. This is exclusive of
the numerous vessels and platforms engaged in
various oil and gas exploration, fishing and
other forms of maritime activities. Such a
number of vessels trading in Nigerias waters
and volume of maritime activities in the country
demand vibrant dry dock facilities to provide
services to the vessels as they may need. With a
large population, Nigeria's maritime industry
especially, shipping and shipbuilding ought to
have been one of the largest in Africa.

The paper Dry Dock Facilities for Building and

Repair of Merchant and Naval Ships identified
the main dry dock facilities in Nigeria, factors
militating against the ability of these facilities to
actualize their shipbuilding and repair objectives
and how both international and national laws
have influenced their development and
performance. A review of Nigerian maritime
industry revealed that shipping and offshore
related activities in Nigerias Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ) portend enormous
opportunities for ship building, repair and
maintenance. A fact that makes it a sine qua
non for ship building and ship repair business to
thrive in Nigeria. Why this has not reflected in
the number and size of dry dock facilities in the
country was traced to gaps identified in the
NIMASA Act 2007, inadequacy of the Nigerian
Content Act 2010, investors apathy for longterm investment as a result of political
uncertainty, poor security environment and
inconsistent government policies on maritime
transportation.
The recommendation is to
review both the NIMASA Act 2007 and the
Nigerian Content Act 2010 to ensure that
Nigerians participation in shipping can be made
easier through vibrant shipbuilding and repair
facilities.

3.
Rear Admiral (USN) Alfred Thayer
Mahan (1840 - 1914) believed that national
greatness is inextricably associated with the sea,
with its commercial usage in peace and its
control in war.
Military strategists and
historians may see the theory of sea control
from naval perspective with the view to
ensuring free commerce for the benefit of
nations' uplands while depriving others of same
in time of war. Many Nigerian leaders and
strategists are no doubt scholars of Seapower
and they may have been drawing inspirations
from the works of Seapower strategists and
historians like Alfred Mahan and Sir John
Laughton. The extent to which the principles of
Seapower have influenced them in the process
of formulating policies and making maritime
related laws for our great nation is yet to be
seen. No doubt, the Nigerian Navy is charged
with the responsibility to safeguard Nigerias
maritime environment and ensure safe and free
sea lane of communication (transportation).
These roles assigned to the Nigerian Navy call
for a sizeable naval fleet. The Nigerian Navy
fleet also add to the number of ships operating
in Nigerians water that require dry dock
facilities to maintain and repair them as needed.

REVIEW OF THE MARITIME INDUSTRY

IN NIGERIA
1.
Marine transportation is one of the
various modes of transportation especially for
littoral countries and it is on record as the
largest carrier of freight worldwide. In fact
about 90% of world trade is transported by sea2.
Nigeria is a littoral state with a coastline that
stretches about 420 nautical miles, a territorial
sea of 12 nautical miles and Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles.
Furthermore, Nigeria has a total of about
8,600km of inland waterways including Rivers
Niger and Benue and smaller rivers and creeks.
It is known fact that there are vast resources in
Nigerias maritime environment ranging from
hydrocarbons to living and non-living resources
most of which have remained untapped.
Exploitation of these requires ships and other
marine vessels and platforms. These thus elicit
variety of investment potentials cutting across
mining, manufacturing and services industries.

4.
I would like us to look at the theory of
Seapower from another perspective by
considering the impact a viable shipbuilding
industry would have in achieving Seapower.
Seapower in this context therefore meaning to
dominate maritime shipping in West African
sub-region to the extent that Nigeria and
Nigerians could not only control but also could
influence international trade by the size of its
fleet of merchant ships. Could this be possible

Source: International Maritime Organization

(http://www.imo.org/).
Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011

if the nation does not have good shipbuilding

infrastructure and shipbuilding policy? What is
the state of health of shipbuilding and ship
repair industry in the country one may therefore
ask? Could a nation determine how much its
citizens could participate in its maritime
shipping if it lacks ability to build and dock
ships for repair or maintenance? The decision
to discuss at this Conference, the subject Dry
Dock Facilities for Building and Repair of
Ships is not only apt but a sign that
professionals that are key to industrialization in
this great country are reviewing their strategy.

Provide directions and ensure compliance with

vessel security measures.
Carry out air and coastal surveillance.
Control and prevent marine pollution.
Provide direction on qualification, certification,
employment and welfare of maritime labour.
Develop and implement policies and
programmes which will facilitate the growth of
local capacity in ownership, manning and
construction of ships and other maritime
infrastructure
Enforce and administer the provisions of the
Cabotage Act 2003.
Perform port and flag state duties.
Receive and remove wrecks.
Provide National Maritime Search and Rescue
Service.
Provide Maritime Security and
Establish the procedure for the implementation
of conventions of the International Maritime
Organisation and the International Maritime
Labour Organisation and other international
conventions to which the Federal Republic of
Nigeria is a party on Maritime Safety and
Security, Maritime Labour, Commercial
Shipping and for the implementation codes,
resolutions and circulars arising there from.

5.
Having a vast maritime environment
that is very rich in resources calls for a large
fleet of merchant ships, marine vessels and
platforms and associated equipment.
The
Cabotage Act 2003 aims to reserve commercial
transportation of goods and services within
Nigerian coastal and inland waters to vessels
flying Nigerian flag and owned by persons of
Nigerian citizenship. International industrial
standards for the maritime industry expect
certain level of performance and maintenance of
these ships, vessels, platforms and equipment.
The ships must undertake mandatory docking
for inspections and maintenance at specific
intervals if they must remain in class. Being in
class is a necessity if they must participate in
trading at the level and magnitude desired by
many Nigerian ship owners. These therefore
necessitate a robust shipbuilding and repair
industry that would make ships and marine
platform acquisition, repair and maintenance
affordable. May be this is a panacea to ensuring
that the Cabotage Act works for the benefit of
people of Nigeria?

It is evident from these that NIMASA cannot

achieve the technical aspects of their mandate if
Nigeria does not have world class dry dock
facilities yet, no mention of dockyard
development was made as a precursor to
developing local capacity in ship construction.
7.
Nigerian ship owners must have easy
access to good ship repair yards that would
enable them to maintain their ships in good
conditions. The industry expectations are to
have ships/vessels that are seaworthy and cheap
to operate. These are conditions that must be
met if Nigerian ship owners are to be
competitive and remain in business.
The
questions now are, how much are we involved
in shipbuilding and repair, what is the state of
dry dock facilities in Nigeria and, how viable is
shipbuilding and repair industry in Nigeria?
What must we do to develop and sustain a
shipbuilding industry that would aid indigenous
ship owners and shippers achieve their business
objectives.

6.
Nigeria Maritime Administration and
Safety Agency (NIMASA) Act 2007 established
NIMASA and gave it the mandate to3:
Pursue the development of shipping and
regulate matters relating to merchant shipping
and seafarers.
Administer the registration and licensing of
ships.
Regulate and administer the certification of
seafarers.
Establish maritime training and safety
standards.
Regulate the safety of shipping as regards the
construction of ships and navigation.
Provide search and rescue service.

8.
The purpose of this paper Dry Dock
Facilities for Building and Repair of Merchant
and Naval Ships is to provoke debates on how
best to bring about a vibrant and viable
shipbuilding and ship repair industry in Nigeria
that would ensure ship ownership and operation

Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety

Agency Act 2007.
Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011

by Nigerians would be affordable and

competitive. This paper will present the state of
ship-repair and shipbuilding facilities in the
country; make a brief gap analysis in the laws of
Nigeria that ought to serve as catalysts for the
development of maritime transportation in
Nigeria.
Finally, it will identify some
challenges confronting shipbuilding and repair
in Nigeria and recommend way forward.

operational. It has the capacity to build new

ships and dock ships for repairs and routine
maintenance. It is operating at the Onne Oil and
Gas Free Zone.
Starzs Marine and Engineering Limited, Onne
Oil and Gas Free Zone. Starzs Marine and
Engineering Limited has a 500T floating dock
and it is fully operational6. This yard is the only
fully indigenous shipyard operating at Onne Oil
and Gas free Zone.
Continental Shipyard Limited, Apapa, Lagos.
Continental Shipyard Limited has a 6,000T
floating dock and a 350T slipway. This is a
subsidiary of the Nigerian Ports Authority. The
shipyard if functional.

STATE OF DRY DOCK FACILITIES IN

NIGERIA
9.
The state of dry dock facilities in
Nigeria could be deduced from the state of some
notable shipyards/dockyards in the country.
Nigerian Naval Dockyard, Victoria Island. The
Nigerian Naval Dockyard has a 10,000T main
dock and 500T twin docks. The docks are all
operating albeit with challenges associated with
aging equipment. Facilities are gradually being
refurbished and upgraded in some cases but the
pace of rehabilitation is slow because of paucity
of funds. The Dockyard provides dry dock
serves for the Nigerian Navy and to merchant
ships as well. This dockyard belongs to the
Nigerian Navy.
Nigerian Naval Shipyard, Port Harcourt. The
Nigerian Naval Shipyard Port Harcourt has a
200T slipway and a 50T slipway. While the
200T slipway is not functional, the 50T slipway
is fully functional having been completely
rehabilitated recently. The major challenge here
is the state of siltation which limits approaches
to the facilities. This shipyard also belongs to
the Nigerian Navy.
Nigerdock Nigeria Plc, Snake Island, Lagos.
The Nigerdock has a 25,000T Dry-dock and a
5,000T Floating Dock4. The company is busy
but the extent that it attends to docking of ships
for repair or routine maintenance can best be
imagined as the yards main focus now tends
more towards providing services to oil and gas
equipment than to ships. This is evidently
expressed on the company website. In effect,
they hardly have space for docking of ships.
This dockyard used to belong to Ministry of
Transport, now it is privatized.
West Atlantic Shipyard, Nigeria, Onne Oil and
Gas Free Zone. West Atlantic Shipyard has a
7000T floating dock and covered workshops for
new ship construction 5. The shipyard is fully

10.
There are other shipyards that are
doing well but they specialize in building small
boats in composite materials. Such yards as
Modant Marine Limited at Rumuolumini and
Almarine at Borikiri specialize in the use of
glass reinforced fibre in boat construction. I
want to state here that my objective is not to
enumerate all the shipyards or dry dock
facilities in the country but to stress that they are
few and in fact they are less than 20 including
those that operate in open spaces where they
pull vessels out of water by unconventional
means. It is also to emphasize that even the best
facility amongst those listed lacks what it takes
to build the kind of ships that could effectively
engage in the Cabotage trade. All of the
facilities have limitations and we must tell
ourselves the truth. Accordingly, from the
foregoing it could be said that dry dock facilities
in Nigeria are inadequate both in number,
capacity and capability. This is pitiable if
compared with a small nation such as Taiwan
that has about 140 shipbuilding yards and these
include 2 large Chinese shipyards7.
11.
A few of dry dock facilities listed
earlier that have managed to maintain
acceptable level of performance have done so
because they played down on ship repair and
focused on construction and maintenance of
platforms for the oil and gas industry. Thanks
to the Nigerian Oils and Gas Industry Content
Development Act 2010 (Local Content Act) and
the earlier local content policy of Nigerian
National Petroleum Company (NNPC). The
6

Starzs Marine & Engineering Limited

Jagal Shipyard Services
(www.starzsshipyard.com/)
7
(http://www.jagal.com/business-sectors/oilIndustrial Technology Information Services,
gas/shipyard-services/)
United Ship Design & Development Centre
5
West Atlantic Shipyard (http://www.was(USDDC): 2001 Taiwan Industrial Outlook
shipyard.com/)
Shipbuilding Industry.
Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011
4

Local Content Act, and the policy before it,

emphasized Oil and Gas industry and hence the
shipyards took advantage of the situation and
began to shift attention to servicing equipment
deployed in the oil and gas industry.
Shipbuilding, ship repair and maintenance
therefore suffer as a result. It would have been
nice if the shipyards had expanded by
developing capacity to serve the oil and gas
industry without sacrificing the growth of their
shipbuilding capability. The truth is, without a
good shipbuilding and ship repair infrastructure
in the country, there is very little that could be
achieved in enforcing the provisions in the
Cabotage Act and the Local content Act on
shipping. There must therefore be an effort at
developing the shipbuilding industry in order to
drive the process for achieving the objectives of
the Cabotage Act. Could Nigeria's lack of
adequate shipbuilding and ship repair facilities
explain the lack of local capacity to handle the
shipping for export of the nation's oil and gas,
solid
minerals,
agricultural
produce,
manufactured industrial and consumer goods,
provision of maritime related services for
shipping and mining (i.e. tug services, anchor
handling and cable/pipe laying vessels, logistics
support vessels) etc?

Poor infrastructure such as electric power

supply, road and rail network including fresh
water supply makes production cost to be high.
Difficulty in accessing funding for shipyard
development is a major challenge more so, that
there is investors apathy for long-term
investment as a result of political uncertainty,
poor security environment and the craze for
quick returns on investment. This calls for
concerted efforts between NIMASA and NNPC
in facilitating access to funding for shipyard
development pursuant of the Cabotage Act and
Local Content Act respectively.
Shipyard
development and shipbuilding are closely
associated with the oil and gas industry because
large proportion of activities in the oil and gas
industry are maritime related. If capacity
building is one of the objectives of the local
content Act, it is expected that Nigeria will not
only be able to repair but also design and build
vessels and platforms required for offshore
activities in oil and gas industry. The Cabotage
Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) should not be
for vessel acquisition alone but should be
available for dockyard development as well.
Critical to the establishment of a viable shipyard
is availability of land adjacent to water that
provides access to the sea and this water should
have sufficient depth that could accommodate
the size of ships envisaged would visit the
shipyard. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)
amongst its functions administers land and
water within ports limits, including planning
and development of port operational
infrastructure. Sadly, it would appear as if NPA
leans more favourably to giving access to these
parcels of land for tank farm development than
for the development of shipbuilding facilities.
While it is possible to site tank farms beyond
seaport vicinity, it is not possible to do so for
shipbuilding facilities. It is therefore worrisome
that more tank farms are being built around
places adjacent to large bodies of water when no
sizable shipbuilding facility is being developed.
There is a contradiction of purpose here?
Most Nigerian ships are old and therefore tend
to spend more time in dock. The result is that
other ship owners whose ships may have been
programmed for docking would become
disappointed. The consequence of such is far
reaching in the sense that the ship may have
been taken off trade for docking. If the reason
for wanting to dock the ship is for class
maintenance and it is taking a long time to carry
out such class maintenance docking, the ship
might have to stay longer out of trade. No ship
owner wants to experience such and this, to a
large extent, explains why local shipyards are

CHALLENGES CONFRONTING DRY DOCK

FACILITIES IN NIGERIA
12.
The challenges confronting dry dock
facilities in Nigeria are numerous. They include
amongst others:
Lack of human resource and technical capacity
is made more acute by lack of human capacity
development canters for shipbuilding industry.
Skilled artisans, mechanics and professional
engineers are very few and for now, training for
naval architects and marine engineers
specialized in shipbuilding is only available
abroad.
Lack of access to technical services for the
development of owners requirement, review of
contract specifications, drawing review,
equipment inspections, on-site supervision, etc.
The National Engineering and Technical
Company Limited (NETCO), a subsidiary of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Company,
provided these kinds of services for the Oil and
Gas Industry at the start of the campaign to
build local capacity for the oil and gas industry.
A similar organization is necessary for the
shipbuilding industry to make up for expertise
that are lacking and make them available for the
shipbuilding industry to access.

Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011

hardly patronized by ships entering or operating

in Nigerias waters.

15.
There must be deliberate effort by both
the government and the private sector in
resolving issues that have been militating
against dockyard development in the country
including amending the Cabotage, NIMASA
and Local Content Acts where necessary to
emphasize development of dry dock facilities
and enforcement of the provisions of the Acts
policies that would emerge there form.

WAY FORWARD
13.
There must be convergence of efforts
by all stakeholders. Ship owners must:
Endeavour to acquire serviceable ships.
Strive to make ships available for mandatory
periodic docking.
Try as much as it is possible to be specific on
scope of work so that dry dock operators could
plan well and avoid failing other ship owners
waiting for dock space.
Provide those spare parts that are peculiar to
their ship especially if such are likely to be
replaced while in the dry dock..

CONCLUSION
14.
I will conclude by saying that given the
large number of ships providing services,
trading or performing other activities in
Nigerias waters, dry dock facilities in the
country is grossly inadequate. The available dry
dock facilities are confronted with myriads of
challenges including poor state of equipment
and facilities, lack of skilled artisans and
professional engineers. Accessibility to land for
dockyard development and funding were
identified as major challenge in dockyard
development.

14.
Dockyards must be able to provide:
Good survey services and assist ship owners to
draw up scope of work for dry docking.
Good and functional dry dock facilities to make
docking swift and efficient.
Inspection services during docking should be
available on demand and should not be delayed.
Train and retrain their technical staff to update
their skills and expertise.
Aim at proper scheduling ships of ships for
docking. This can only be achieved if thorough
survey of ship is carried out before docking her.
Develop good and steady sources of supply of
materials that would often be required by ships
in dry dock.

15.
Finally, deliberate efforts must be
made to develop dockyards and shipbuilding
capability if the country is to derive the benefits
for the Cabotage, NIMASA and Local Content
Acts.

Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference Proceedings CANAAN 2011