Abstract:Existing studies indicate that marine pollution control in the ports of developing economies is marred by a lack of administrative control and inadequate provision of waste reception facilities. In Nigeria ports, ship generated waste control services and provision of waste reception facilities are outsourced to private companies with no requirement for an activity audit. Apart from the port authority, other government agencies are also involved in pollution monitoring and control. Hence, functions are duplicated and effective regulation is arguably weakened by conflicts of interest. A scientific based integrated model is therefore proposed to address the managerial problem posed in the control of marine pollution in Nigerian ports. In this paper, we conduct a physico-chemical and microbiological analysis of samples of ships' wastewater to determine the status of marine pollution in the port environment. The samples were collected from randomly selected ships at berths in seaport locations. The outputs from the analysis are then integrated as inputs into an administrative framework model. The integrated model developed is proposed as an alternative administrative tool for monitoring and controlling pollution in seaports. The policy implications of the developed model are discussed.

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Abstract:The performance of Nigeria insurance industry has been ranked below global standards and which ranking has implications on risk management in the maritime shipping sector. In this paper, the performance and operating environment of a sample of insurance firms (with marine risk portfolios) were empirically examined. Secondary data on earned premium income, indemnity paid, management expenses and total expenses representing performance indices of these firms over a period from 1974-2013 were collected for analysis of their operational performance. Qualitative data were also extracted from existing literature for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis to determine the attributes of operating environment of the insurance firms. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) model tests on the performance indices showed that the insurance firms earned more premium than indemnity paid out during the study period. Their management expenses however, exceeded amount of indemnity paid. In terms of challenges facing the firms, the SWOT analysis revealed prevalence of poor quality service delivery to insurance customers, customer distrust, inadequate technical manpower and unfavourable macro-economic environment. Prospects for growth of the industry were found favourable due to introduction of local content policy/cabotage shipping Acts and upgraded risk management framework. The paper recommends that more specific policy interventions be directed at complete removal of impediments in the operating environment of marine insurance firms since their performance outcome has implications on viability of shipping and related maritime businesses.

Concerns about performance and efficiency in port terminals led many national governments to embark on port reforms. The Federal government of Nigeria, for example, adopted the Landlord port model which brought about concessioning of port terminals to private operators. Despite high investments in terminal facilities by the private terminal operators, there are still complaints about level of service offered to port users. This paper applied key performance indicator metrics and parameters of queuing model in assessing performance of Nigeria's concessioned port terminals. Data for the study were obtained from terminal level records of cargo and ship handling activities for years 2000 to 2015. Major findings indicate that cargo and vessel throughputs improved after the reforms in the six ports examined. However, much variability was observed in trends in ships' turnround times across all ports after the concession policy implementation. Additional results from the queuing model analysis suggest that the high ships turnround times observed in some ports are associated to delays in ship operation at the berths. The paper recommends that policy interventions be focused on ship operations at the berths as a step in improving service level in the port terminals.

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Performance of ship resistance and other propulsion characteristics greatly depend on ships' hull form. However, design considerations based on range of hull modifications can be practically limited by material and time resources, hence the need for computational optimization techniques based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In this paper, hull form of a parent vessel: single screw supply vessel was screen designed and then sequentially optimized for total resistance and wave height through the application of CFD technique. The modelling was done using ANSYS ® , CAESES ® and NAVCAD ® workbench. Input parameters included moulded beam, steepness of stem and length overall. These were the basis for parametric variations of hull forms during optimization. The optimization processes (based on turbulent flows) lasted for about two hours. A model of the optimized hull was built and tested in marine towing tank with appendages including propeller and rudder at respective model speeds in standard conditions. Towing tests showed that the optimized ship hull exhibited low resistance and decreased wave height in comparison with parent hull. The robustness of CFD technique particularly for stern to stem hull modification was further established.

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