This year sees West African shipping specialist OT Africa Line (OTAL) celebrating its 30th anniversary. It’s a significant milestone, particularly given the complexity of the West African trade and the scale of OTAL’s development.
As one of a handful of shipping lines serving West Africa, OTAL has had to become more effective and cost efficient in order to compete. It now acts as a one-stop shop providing a full range of transport services, including consolidation, warehousing, trucking and shipping.
Transport operators serving West Africa have had to adapt to radically changing circumstances – much lower export volumes; increased demand for the carriage of more delicate value-added products including veneers, plywood and furniture parts; and changes in the sources of West African exports, which have heightened competition between various countries, resulting in a re-direction of some shipping services.
Today OTAL has access to a fleet of 19 ships – six of the largest multipurpose ro-ros in the trade, together with 11 container ships. These offer capacities of 1,000-1,300 TEUs each, ro-ro capacities of 4,500-5,000 lane metres and space for all manner of containers, reefers, cars, and general cargo.
Product range
The company ships a wide variety of products into the UK. Product types include hardwoods such as iroko, sapele, mahogany, sipo, azobe and moabi, and white woods such as ayous and wawa. Volumes into the UK are stable.
The company launched its service in 1975 with the first multi-purpose ro-ro vessels to the region, starting exclusively with calls to Nigeria. Since the sailing of its first vessel, the Pool Antelope – a small 17 trailer/200 lane metre ro-ro – the company has changed enormously.
According to marketing manager Rachel Bennett: “One of our hallmarks is our versatility in being able to ship and transport the wide range of cargo types associated with trade to and from West Africa.
“We have always focused exclusively on serving West Africa and as a result we are now one of the strongest players on the trade. OTAL has a great deal of experience and understands the diversities and complexities of the market as well as the regulatory, political and operational systems that work within this complex continent.”
Having started as a one-port operator to Lagos, OTAL now serves every major port between Morocco and Angola. In addition, the line has developed transport services providing worldwide connections within destinations throughout the region, including commercial centres in the landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali and Niger.
Using an extensive range of connecting cargo agreements, OTAL effectively links West Africa with Europe, North America, Far and Middle East and the Indian Sub-continent, as well as to the Baltics, through its recently expanded agency agreement with Maritime Transport & Agencies (see fact file).
“Over the years… our forte for transporting to the sub-region has developed beyond shipping,” said Ms Bennett. “Long-term investment is critical. We are cautiously optimistic about the future – and well prepared for the long haul ahead.”
