Productivity change in Nigerian seaports after reform: a Malmquist productivity index decomposition approach

During the 1990s, Nigerian seaports were considered inefficient, unsafe due to massive cargo theft (wharf rat phenomenon) and one of the most expensive port systems in the world. This resulted in long turnaround times for ships and increased container dwell times. As a result, port operations were transferred to the private sector through concession contracts. This paper employs a Malmquist productivity index (MPI) technique to benchmark pre-and post-reform total factor productivity growth of the six major Nigeria seaports (Apapa, Calabar, Onne, Port Harcourt, TinCan Island and Warri) for the period 2000–2011 which represents six years before (2000–2005) and six years after (2006–2011) the reform. The results indicate progress in technical efficiency of the ports after reform but deterioration in technological progress. Overall productivity growth was higher in the pre-concession period compared to the post-concession period. The source of pre-concession period productivity growth was technological progress while the change in productivity of the post-concession period is generated by an increase in scale efficiency. This suggests that concessionaires have not brought in the much anticipated investment in modern technology to drive port efficiency. The ports of Calabar and Apapa experienced the highest productivity growth while lowest result was Onne

Cu, Zn and Sn VERTICAL DISTRIBUTION IN SEDIMENT CORES FROM THE ELEFSIS GULF (ATTIKI - GREECE)

Elefsis gulf, on the coasts of Attiki, in Greece, is characterised by its rather enclosed type, the presence of heavy industries located at its northeastern coast (like refineries, shipyards, iron and steel industries) and the use of its ports for the transportation of raw material and products. Previous research has shown that both industrial and marine transport activities, during the past six decades, have contaminated the gulf environment with various pollutants including metals. The respective sedimentation rate was calculated to approximately 0.5 - 0.8 cm/year. The present work is aiming to evaluate Cu, Zn and Sn vertical and fractional distribution in Elefsis gulf sediments. For this purpose, sediment cores were collected from four sites along the north coast of the gulf. After lyophilization and sieving, the samples were treated applying the sequential extraction analytical procedure of Tessier et al (with a few modifications) for the partitioning of the elements among the various geochemical fractions. Metal concentrations were measured using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. The results showed that most of the non-residual Cu is associated with the organic/sulphides fraction, as Cu exhibits a strong affinity for the organic matter while it can also be present in sulphide minerals. In general, significant Zn percentage is associated with the exchangeable fraction (12% - 32% of the total), indicating biological availability and anthropogenic input. As expected, considerable Zn is bound to ferromanganese oxides (21% - 41% of the total) due to their scavenging ability for trace metals. The four non residual fractions of Zn show a downcore decrease. More than 79% of the total Sn occurs in the residual fraction. However, the four non-residual fractions of Sn exhibit enrichment at 10-20 cm sediment core depth. Concluding, Elefsis gulf sediments correspond to a significant pollution level while the recent ones may act as secondary pollution sources, implying therefore the need for an environmentally sound management scheme

Hedging ship price risk using freight derivatives in the drybulk market

We show that a fixed-maturity time-weighted Forward Freight Agreement (FFA) portfolio should be used to proxy the expected future earnings of a vessel. We investigate the corresponding hedging efficiency when using a portfolio of FFA prices to hedge ship price risk of both static hedge ratios calculated using Ordinary Least Squares estimation and the dynamic hedge ratios generated from a dynamic conditional correlation GARCH (1,1) model. We find that the hedging efficiency is greater for newer vessels than older vessels and that the static hedge ratio outperforms the dynamic hedge ratio. Our work is an extension of earlier empirical work which has only considered the hedging efficiency of varying-maturity calendar FFA contracts for a single vessel age.publishedVersio