Dangote Industries is set to acquire its own vessels as part of efforts to overcome shipping constraints and reduce the rising cost of transporting its products to markets across West and Central Africa.
The company’s Head of International Trade and Export at Dangote Cement, Sada Ladan-Baki, disclosed this on Tuesday at a seminar focused on non-oil exports.
Ladan-Baki explained that securing adequate shipping capacity had become a major challenge for the conglomerate, particularly as it expands its exports across the region.
She recalled that Dangote once struggled to secure a vessel to transport a 1,000-metric-tonne consignment to Ghana, despite the relatively short distance between Nigeria and the West African country.
“We are moving forward towards getting our own ships in order to do this business,” she said.
According to her, transporting goods by road also presents significant challenges because products heading to Ghana have to pass through neighbouring countries, including Benin and Togo, where additional taxes and charges are imposed.
These costs, she noted, increase the overall expense of moving Nigerian products and reduce their competitiveness in regional markets.
The planned acquisition of vessels is therefore expected to strengthen Dangote’s maritime logistics capacity while supporting the company’s growing regional trade operations.
The move is also coming as Dangote’s businesses become increasingly linked to maritime transportation.
The company’s $20 billion refinery in Lagos has significantly increased Nigeria’s seaborne petroleum-product exports. The United States Energy Information Administration recently reported that Nigeria’s petroleum-product exports by sea have increased substantially since 2023, driven largely by production from the Dangote refinery.
The refinery is also projected to handle about 600 vessels annually, including ships transporting crude oil into the facility and vessels carrying refined petroleum products to domestic and international markets.
Reacting to the development, the President of the Indigenous Shipowners Association of Nigeria, Otunba Shola Adewumi, said Dangote had historically depended on foreign-flagged vessels to transport crude and refined petroleum products because Nigeria lacked enough vessels with the required capacity.
However, Adewumi cautioned that purchasing ships was only the beginning, stressing that their maintenance and management would present another major responsibility.
He said Dangote was free to acquire vessels as a Nigerian businessman but expressed hope that the company would register the ships under the Nigerian flag.
According to him, doing so would increase Nigeria’s national fleet and strengthen the country’s position in the international maritime industry.
Adewumi added that the acquisition could also create employment opportunities for Nigerian seafarers and other professionals working in shipping, logistics and international trade.
The development is expected to further deepen Dangote’s involvement in Nigeria’s maritime sector while potentially reducing its dependence on third-party shipping operators for regional exports.
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