The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has stated that 4,355 vessels were registered in Nigeria.
The agency, in a document obtained by The PUNCH, said out of the 4,355 registered vessels, 600 were tanker vessels.
According to the agency, the country has 347 fishing vessels and 3,408 other types of registered vessels.
However, it disclosed that a total of 1071 vessels were registered as cabotage vessels.
Commenting on the figure, the President of the Nigeria Chamber of Shipping, Aminu Umar, said:, “It is good to have such number of registered Nigerian vessels but there others that are not registered in Nigeria. But the cabotages are the ones that are doing cabotage business only. There are requirements for more but what we need to understand is that ships are in different categories.”
Umar, who was a former president of the Nigerian Indigenous Shipowners Association, commended the Federal Government for having up to 600 tanker vessels registered in the country.
“If they said they have registered 600 tanker vessels, it is good. It is a very big number in international shipping to have 600 tanker vessels in your registry.”
According to him, there are vessels that are trading in the country that are not Nigerian.
“The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas’ vessels are not registered in Nigeria. They are Nigerian owned but not registered in Nigeria. NLNG owns more than 12 vessels that are not registered in Nigeria. I cannot say if the number in cabotage is big because I do not know the category of the vessels,” he explained.
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