'The Singapore of West Africa'

Since becoming the major share holder in 2006, investment firm Lonrho Africa is working on plans to create a Singapore-inspired deepwater port in West Africa. The project involves expansion of the Luba Freeport in Equatorial Guinea to handle the world’s largest tanker and container vessels.

Luba is situated on the Bioko island, which as the rim of a sunken volcano has natural deep water. The growing oil industry in the area is the driving factor for the development, which already has companies such as Exon Mobile and Baker Hughes, a provider of drilling, formation evaluation and production services, as customers.

Luba is also interestingly sited as a transhipment location, given the short steaming distance to Nigeria, Cameroon and Gabon. Jurong Primewide, part of Singapore’s Jurong International Holdings, has been appointed to plan and design the expansion, which includes an 18-metre depth facility for oil and container transhipment terminals. It is believed that representatives from major container terminal interests will be visiting in early 2008 to establish how this project can be moved forward.