ACT lost its last mainline customer at the beginning of 2010, when the Grand Alliance downsized its Far East-Europe services and scrapped its former EU-1 service. This was the start of four years of falling container traffic at the terminal after it failed to attract new business.

The 54-hectare terminal opened in 2001 as Ceres Paragon with an annual capacity to handle 1.2 million TEU along its 400m berth and an additional berth of 615m in the Amerika haven.

The terminal had a unique design known as ship-in-a-slip, equipped with nine container cranes and a fleet of 39 straddle carriers. According to the announcement four of the cranes have been sold off and the remainders are to be disposed of soon, while the straddle carriers have been moved to HPH’s ECT Home Terminal in Rotterdam.

ACT is located 15km from the North Sea to which it is connected by the Noordzee kanaal and the Ijmuiden locks, three hours away from the pilot station. Due to the size of the locks and the canal depth, the terminal is restricted to ships of 8,000 TEU or less, though it was designed to handle larger ships.

The announcement said that “HPH had planned to operate ACT as a small, mature deep-sea container terminal, which would be kept operational until the arrival of a new super post-panamax lock at IJmuiden, due by 2019. However, declining prospects for the terminal and increased competition from ports in the North Continent forced HPH to shut the facility.”

According to the concession agreement granted by the Togolese government in December 2011, the new container terminal, located in the port of Lome, will upon completion be equipped with four berths stretched out along a 1,050m quay and a yard measuring 53 hectares. It is designed to have an annual capacity of 2.2 million TEU.

The remaining 50% equity interest will continue to be held by a member of Terminal Investment Limited (the TIL Group), which operates 24 functioning terminals globally with four under construction, including LCT.

The deep-water Lome Container Terminal will not only be Togo’s first terminal, the facility is also expected to be the first of its kind built in West Africa, positioning the container terminal to act as a trans-shipment hub for the region. Regional container traffic volume has risen 10.3% annually for the past 15 years. Construction of LCT will be undertaken in phases, with the first 400m of quay line expected to be ready for operation by December 2013.

The Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world’s second largest container shipping company, has signed a terminal service agreement with LCT to use the facility for 15 years from the start of operations

“Having made concrete inroads through our investment in Tin-Can Island Container Terminal in Lagos, Nigeria, which has delivered satisfactory results, we are continuing our positioning in container terminal investment in the promising African market. The LCT project reflects yet again CMHI’s on-going efforts to expand our international footprint,” said CMHI chairman Dr Fu Yuning. “Given its maritime proximity and its natural sea-depth, Lome lies strategically as Togo’s key import and export channel. Combined with the Togolese government’s open and free trade policies and LCT’s scheduled completion, the terminal is equipped to service cargo flows along the Gulf of Guinea and will stand to rapidly become a key trans-shipment hub for the West African region.”

“Furthermore, LCT’s land connectivity with the rest of Togo and its neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Benin, indicates its future potential in capturing land-based cargo flows derived from West African countries,” Fu added. “Strategically, not only does this investment further anchor CMHI’s position in West Africa, it also enables us to leverage the resources we have already committed for the Tin-can project onto LCT, thereby optimising our investment return in the region. In addition, the transaction reflects the deeper working relationship we are forging with MSC.”

Revenues reflected a 10% growth in container volumes and a 14% increase in non-container. The company’s revenues from Middle East, Africa and European operations grew 14% to USD1 billion, but revenues from Asia Pacific, Indian subcontinent and Australia fell in the first half.

“The past six months has been a challenging period for the global economy. Taking this into account, it is very encouraging that DP World has been able to show good profit growth across its global portfolio, led by it key markets of Africa, the Middle East and South America,” said DP World chairman Sultan Ahmen Bin Sulayem in a company statement.

DP World handled 28.2 million TEU at its more than 60 terminals compared with 26.2 million TEU in the same period last year – an increase of 7.5%.

Looking across its regional portfolio, the company said the Middle East, Europe and Africa region delivered a remarkable performance with an 18% improvement in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to USD477 million and further improvement in EBITDA margin to 46.3%. “This reflects the strategic positioning of our terminals towards the faster growing and stronger economies in this region, mitigating weaker trade across continental Europe,” said the company statement. The Asia-Pacific and Indian subcontinent reported EBITDA of USD159 million in the first six months and record EBITDA margins of 68.4%. Our terminals in the Australia and Americas region delivered a strong revenue performance in the first six months of 2012 reporting revenue of USD266 million, or 12%, growth on an underlying basis and EBITDA of USD77 million.”

It was a record breaking year in which containers were half its cargo traffic coming in at 796,024 TEU, a 35% increase on the FY before, attributed to siphoning of cargo by rail from its inland container MetroPort facility, south Auckland by rail, and remaining third of gains made from re-directed freight following Ports of Auckland strikes and go slows.

New shipping services support the increase by 200,000 TEU of the total handled with Metroport up 33% to 183,000 TEU. “Our long-term business partner KiwiRail was pivotal to this success. At short notice, it stepped up increasing services from MetroPort in Auckland to Sulphur Point from four to six trains per day giving us capacity of up to 636 TEU per day each way. It continues to offer this service,” said port CEO Mark Cairns.

Cargo volume by tonnage was up 20% to 18.5 million tonnes with diary leading the volume in 126% increase to 1.33 million tonnes and logs up 11% to 4.9 million tonnes.

“The port is forecast to continue gains despite a global economic uncertainty,” said Cairns weathering huge volume increases in March of 82,000 TEU up 81% year-on-year.

It awaits a final decision in October on NZD180 million capital expenditure port expansion over the next three years and dredging work to allow for the next generation vessels. In the last financial year, the port expanded its fleet of twin-lift straddle carriers by six and has ordered a further six for delivery early in 2013.