Only two years ago, Maersk Line phased in the last of its twenty-two 4,500-TEU WAFMAX geared ships, but these days, gearless 5,000-TEUers account for 20 per cent of the trade from the Far East to West Africa, reports the UK's Port Strategy.

The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has now announced calls by 6,000-TEUers based on a single hub port Togo, the Lome Container Terminal.

Hong Kong's China Merchants together with Terminal Investment Limited (TIL), an MSC affiliate, have stakes in what is a major development in the West African container trade.

It is a purpose-built transshipment hub with 15.5 metres alongside and designed to operate on a common-user basis. As such, it offers access to the larger size containerships able to provide direct services and economies of scale.

A network of feeders operating along the West Africa coast and further afield will operate in conjunction with the terminal similar to how they function with hubs such as Gioa Tauro or Malta in the Mediterranean, the report said.

The terminal will additionally be employed for gateway cargo moving into Togo and beyond to central African countries as well as to nearby Ghana.

The development and operation of the terminal can be seen as a bold and ambitious plan designed to capture the transshipment market and to fulfil a strong gateway function.

A throughput of up to 500,000 TEU is envisaged in the short term with the ability to raise capacity up to two million TEU as demand necessitates.

But the Lome Container Terminal is only the first of over five major schemes that are in the pipeline to rapidly raise West Africa's container handling status and which promise to generate rivalry along the coast for transshipment traffic.