Tema Port Sharpens Its Edge Against Abidjan and Lomé in Battle for West Africa's Container Trade

Ghana's Tema Port has closed out 2025 as West Africa's leading container gateway, edging past long-time rival Lomé and pulling further ahead of Abidjan, even as the three Gulf of Guinea hubs deepen a rivalry that now stretches from the quayside to the landlocked Sahel.

A Milestone Decade in the Making

Since the commissioning of its Terminal 3 in June 2019, Tema has broken volume records almost every year. The port closed 2025 with roughly 2.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) moving across its quays, according to port-industry data, comfortably ahead of Abidjan's 1.7 million TEUs and just above Lomé's 2.06 million TEUs recorded in 2024. Cargo tonnage has more than doubled over the past decade, with Tema handling 24.3 million tonnes in 2024 alone.

The gains have been driven substantially by transshipment traffic, which now makes up a quarter of the containers passing through Tema, and by the arrival of ultra-large vessels. Early in 2025, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) tested 24,000-TEU container ships on the West African coast, calling at Tema, Lomé and Abidjan in succession a development port officials frame as confirmation of the region's growing relevance to Asia-Europe shipping lanes, rather than a coincidence.

Origins Rooted in Nkrumah-Era Ambition

Tema's current growth fulfils a purpose set out when Kwame Nkrumah inaugurated the port in February 1962, transforming a British colonial breakwater project into an industrial-port complex built to move cocoa and other exports. Volumes doubled within its first five years, reaching 1.5 million tonnes by 1967, before falling commodity prices and administrative decline set in through the 1990s.

A turning point came when political instability disrupted Abidjan's port operations in the early 2010s, pushing landlocked Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to route cargo through Ghana instead. That shift, formalized in Ghana's 1995 Trade and Investment Gateway Project, laid the groundwork for the terminal expansion that followed: a 2004 concession handed to Meridian Port Holding a joint venture bringing together AP Moller Terminals and what is now Africa Global Logistics, alongside a 30% stake held by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and the eventual construction of Terminal 3, inaugurated in 2019 on 27 hectares reclaimed from the sea.

Sahel Corridor Remains the Real Prize

The contest for Sahelian transit cargo has intensified rather than settled. Data reviewed by port analysts show Abidjan's transit traffic to Mali surged 76.4% in 2025, while Burkina Faso-linked cargo rose 16.6%, evidence that Côte d'Ivoire is not conceding the corridor despite trailing on containers. Lomé, for its part, still channels the bulk of Alliance of Sahel States (AES) transit traffic through its port, aided by its transshipment-heavy model.

GPHA officials have said they hope to recover cotton export volumes Tema once handled from the Sahel, while also courting new traffic from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

Beyond containers, Tema is pushing to replicate MPS's efficiency gains across dry bulk agricultural and mining commodities and general cargo, positioning itself as a candidate gateway for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), whose secretariat sits in Accra.

Road Links Remain Tema's Weak Point

Where Tema still lags is on land. Unlike Abidjan, it has no rail line serving its hinterland, and the single access road into the port area is chronically congested, with container stacks reportedly forming what dockworkers describe as a wall around the three terminals. Port management is working with government road contractors on dedicated truck lanes and upstream parking to ease the bottleneck, but the outcome depends on infrastructure projects still under construction across greater Accra.

The Competitive Picture Going Into 2027

For now, the three ports are effectively splitting the region's advantages: Abidjan leads on overall tonnage more than 46 million tonnes in 2025, driven by domestic Ivorian demand Lomé leads on transshipment share and AES corridor dominance, and Tema leads on raw container volume. Abidjan has set a public target of reaching 2 million TEUs by 2027, meaning the container race among the three is unlikely to be settled soon.

Mustapha Bature Sallama medical Science communicator, Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,United States Institute of Peace (USIP), [email protected] +233555275880

References

• Ecofin Agency, "In West African Port Competition, Abidjan Leads on Volume, Trails Lomé and Tema on Containers," https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-industry/1702-52983-in-west-african-port-competition-abidjan-leads-on-volume-trails-lome-and-tema-on-containers
• The Africa Report, "Ghana's $1bn port push: Tema takes on Abidjan for control of the Sahel," https://www.theafricareport.com/395689/ghanas-1bn-port-push-tema-takes-on-abidjan-for-control-of-the-sahel/
• Port Autonome d'Abidjan, "Abidjan Port: Record Growth of +16% in 2025," https://portabidjan.ci/en/news/abidjan-port-record-growth-16-2025
• Agence Ecofin, "Compétition portuaire ouest-africaine : Abidjan 1er sur le fret conventionnel, Lomé et Tema sur les conteneurs," https://www.agenceecofin.com/actualites-industries/1702-135885-competition-portuaire-ouest-africaine-abidjan-1er-sur-le-fret-conventionnel-lome-et-tema-sur-les-conteneurs
• WorldCargo News, "Ghana commissions phases 1 & 2 of the Tema Port expansion," https://www.worldcargonews.com/news/2025/11/ghana-commissions-phases-1-2-of-the-tema-port-expansion/
• Jeune Afrique, "How Ghana's Tema port is catching up with Abidjan to capture Sahel trade flows," https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1733274/economie-entreprises/port-comment-tema-talonne-abidjan-pour-capter-les-flux-du-sahel/
• Jeune Afrique, "Afrique de l'Ouest : comment Lomé et Tema cherchent à s'imposer comme portes d'entrée de l'AES," https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1691160/economie-entreprises/afrique-de-louest-comment-lome-et-tema-cherchent-a-simposer-comme-portes-dentree-de-laes
• Journal of Shipping and Trade, "Comparative analysis of container ports performance in West Africa," https://doi.org/10.1186/s41072-025-00202-6