By Godwin Oritse

• Booked to move cargoes to Ghana, Lome

THE first ever Nigerian owned container vessel, ‘M.V. Ocean Dragon’ yesterday arrived the Tin-Can Island port with over 350 containers on board her.

Speaking at the ceremony, Vice President of Clarion Shipping Mrs Benedine Eloka said that the vessel is a long term plan that is materialized with the support of the stakeholders like the Banks and agencies of government.

Eloka also said that the vessel has come to proffer solutions to Nigerian importers and exporters who have difficulties in moving their containerized cargoes within the country and the West African sub-region.

She disclosed that the vessel has capacity for 349 Twenty Equivalent Units, TEUs and can help lessen the problems of container movement within Nigeria as against trucking such containerized cargoes to other parts of the country.

She said: “Other than operating in Nigerian coastal waters, the vessel is also meant to service West African countries like Cotomou, Lome, Ghana, Sierra Leone and it can go as far as Egypt and South Africa.

“As we speak, we have bookings to Ghana, Lome and we have a second vessel that will be moving containers from China directly to Lagos because we do not want to do transhipment from country to country and delaying importers’ cargoes like other shipping lines.”

Eloka explained that the one of the major challenges Clarion faced was the funding the acquisition of the vessel adding that the business was already on ground and the customers were also there waiting to be serviced.

Similarly, Managing Director of Clarion, Venessa Eloka said that the firm saw a gap in the West African sub-region shipping market adding that the company has come to fill that gap by way of moving cargoes within and outside Nigeria.

Ocean Dragon, Pamana flagged vessel, has a 16 man crew, with 10 of them being Nigerians while the vessel is Captained by an Indonesian, Deddy Febriyanto.