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A deal is brewing between the Russian company, JSC A7 Holding and seaports in Africa’s largest city that will establish a direct shipping line between Nigeria and Russia.
JSC A7 Holding is fully owned by Andrei Severilov, a Russian businessman who previously co-owned one of Russia’s largest logistics companies, FESCO. Recently, A7 Holding founded a new legal entity focused on freight transportation.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, A7 African Cargo Lines LLC was registered in Moscow on April 17, with a charter capital of 10 million rubles (approximately $122,000). The company’s primary activity is identified as railway freight transportation, as recorded by Ready Ratios.
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The shipping line, which will connect the ports of Novorossiysk in Russia and Lagos in Nigeria, is scheduled for launch in June. Two container ships, each capable of carrying 700 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), have been chartered for this route.
“We intend to operate in West Africa,” Severilov told Interfax regarding the company’s establishment. “At the first stage, with the assistance of the Russian trade mission in Nigeria, we are implementing a project to establish a direct shipping line,” he said.
The 9,890 km route starts in the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, running through the Mediterranean and the West African coast to Lagos.
The route will support exports of Russian agricultural products, equipment, and transport, while enabling imports of Malian cotton, a key crop with over 650,000 tonnes harvested annually, Maxim Petrov, the Russian trade representative in Nigeria, told Russian media, as reported by Sputnik Africa.
The sea route is also expected to reduce logistics costs. “This is a significant step forward, as the previous rate for container delivery, which was around $8,000-$9,000, will be nearly halved,” he said.
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Plans are also underway to expand the shipping line to Dakar port in Senegal.
Interfax reports that the new line is incorporated in the United States, and is owned by two U.S. business entities: A7 Holding LLC (registered in Delaware) and A7 Infrastructure LLC (registered in Missouri).
Severilov previously held a 23.8 percent stake in FESCO, a container line that was taken over by the state in 2022 following the arrest of major shareholder Ziyavudin Magomedov on corruption charges.
BusinessDay reached out to the NPA, Nigeria’s port regulator, for comments but did not receive feedback.
