Ports and Terminal Multiservices Ltd (PTML) command of the Nigeria Customs Service, (NCS) said it recorded a total of N37,908,114.00 as annual revenue for 2010. This figure is however not inclusive of the Negotiated Duty Credit Certificate (NDCC) which stands at N3,147,750,053.00.

NDCC is an instrument designed by the service to assist manufacturers pay for raw materials when they do not have ready cash. The money is later redeemed by the importer at a future date.

According to Christian Chinedu Ogbonna, the Public Relations Officer of the Command, the 2010 annually generated revenue achieved 29 per cent increase from the 2009 figure. In 2009 the command recorded N29,462,110,789.88 while the NDCC for that year was put at N550,238,800.00.

Ports and Terminal Multiservices Ltd is one of the leading dedicated Roll-on/Roll off (RORO) terminals in West Africa. The company was registered in 2003 by Grimaldi Lines to respond the initial invitation of the Federal Government to participate in the development of ports facilities in Nigeria.

Acknowledging the necessity to expand terminal areas in Lagos rather than relying on the existing over stretched port facilities, Grimaldi Lines, through its Special Purpose Vehicle – PTML – proposed the development a completely new terminal in a totally neglected and underutilised area of Tin-Can Island.

This would have been the first new terminal built in Lagos, since the completion of Tin Can Island Port Complex in 1977. in February 2005, Grimaldi Lines through its subsidiary PTML signed an agreement with the Federal Government to Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) a new terminal in Lagos – Under the BOT agreement the first of this kind signed by the Federal Government in the Maritime Sector – Grimaldi assumed the obligation to build the new infrastructure at its own cost, to manage it for 25 years and pay royalties to the Nigerian Ports Authority and to return it at the end of the concession to the Federal Government.

The first phase of the terminal – which entailed the construction of a new 220mt berth, the paving of 220,000 sqm and the provision of all necessary infrastructure, was commissioned after only 16 months, in August 2006 by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. The second phase which included the construction of a second 200 mt berth and the reclamation of additional 40,000 sqm of terminal area, was completed one year later.