When a ship needs dry docking in West Africa today, it travels 10 to 14 days to Walvis Bay in Namibia or Las Palmas in Spain.
Every one of those journeys represents lost time, burnt fuel, elevated emissions, and foreign exchange leaving the region.
Project Shiprite exists to end that inefficiency, and PIDG’s intervention is what finally made the financing work.
The Private Infrastructure Development Group, through its investment arm InfraCo, has joined the investor consortium for the US$137 million ship repair and dry docking facility at the Port of Takoradi in Ghana.
The PIDG InfraCo equity commitment was the piece that closed a critical late-stage funding gap, and in doing so, it unlocked a cascade of senior and mezzanine debt that had been waiting on the sidelines.
That debt comes from a credible line-up: the African Export-Import Bank as Mandated Lead Arranger, the African Development Bank, the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB), Petra Pension Schemes, and Origen Private Debt Fund.
PIDG’s equity sits alongside commitments from ARM-Harith Infrastructure Fund and project developer Prime Meridian Docks Ghana Ltd., forming a consortium structured for the long term under a 25-year concession agreement with the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.
The announcement was made at the Ghana-UK Investment Summit in London, attended by President John Dramani Mahama highlighting the diplomatic and economic weight attached to this project.
What Gets Built and Where
The PIDG InfraCo Takoradi floating dock Project Shiprite in Ghana in 2026 will deliver a world-class commercial ship repair and dry docking facility at the Port of Takoradi, located 225 km from Accra on the Gulf of Guinea.
The facility will accommodate vessels up to 200 metres in length for dry docking and repairs, a specification that positions it to serve the full range of commercial and industrial vessels operating in the region.
This is the first dry-docking facility of its kind in West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, a gap that has persisted not because the demand was absent but because the financing structure was too complex for conventional capital to navigate alone. PIDG’s role was precisely to navigate that complexity.
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How Project Shiprite Is Positioning Ghana as a Regional Maritime Hub
How Project Shiprite is positioning Ghana as a regional maritime hub is a story about geography, economics, and timing.
The Port of Takoradi sits at the heart of West Africa’s offshore oil and gas corridor, serving a shipping industry that has had no viable regional dry docking option for decades.
Once operational, Project Shiprite eliminates the need for those 10-to-14-day repositioning voyages to Namibia or Spain reducing vessel downtime, cutting fuel consumption and emissions, and retaining foreign exchange that currently flows out of the region with every repair contract.
The economic logic is compelling: every vessel that docks at Takoradi instead of Walvis Bay is revenue, employment, and industrial capacity staying in West Africa.
Stanley R. K. Ahorlu, Lead Sponsor and CEO of Prime Meridian Docks, was direct about the combined benefit: international-standard dry docking facilities in Ghana generate employment while reducing journey times, fuel costs, and emissions simultaneously.
Claire Jarratt, PIDG Head of Investment Management for InfraCo, described Project Shiprite as the embodiment of PIDG’s mandate: closing critical late-stage funding gaps to unlock transformational infrastructure that private capital alone would not reach.
The Decarbonisation Dimension
The Takoradi floating dock Ghana project carries an environmental logic beyond its immediate economic function.
The facility is designed to support the shipping industry’s decarbonisation agenda through retrofitting services and energy-efficient modifications work that is increasingly mandated by international maritime regulations and demanded by cargo owners tracking their supply chain emissions.
A regional dry docking hub capable of handling emissions retrofits reduces the carbon cost of the retrofits themselves by eliminating long repositioning voyages.
It is a compounding environmental benefit: cleaner ships, reached more cleanly.
Infrastructure Investment That Creates Markets
The PIDG InfraCo Africa infrastructure model is built around a specific thesis: that development finance can crowd in commercial capital by absorbing the risks that markets will not price at early stages.
Project Shiprite is the thesis in action. The equity from PIDG, ARM-Harith, and Prime Meridian Docks did not just fund a project but created the conditions under which multilateral and private debt could enter.
Rachel Moré-Oshodi, CEO of ARM-Harith Infrastructure Fund Managers, articulated the purpose plainly: turning essential infrastructure ideas into investable projects that strengthen local economies, deepen industrial capacity, and create long-term value.
