The study evaluated optimization as a quantitative approach to minimizing the costs of terminal operations in comparison with the routine (trial and error) approach found to be employed by terminal operators in Nigerian ports. To carry out the experimental survey, five-year throughput data of dry and liquid bulk cargoes from a bulk terminal operator at Port Harcourt NPA Port were collected from 2015 to 2019 to serve the routine approach purpose. In parallel an objective function was modelled to minimize the costs of cargo handling subject to identified constraints that produced the optimal solutions for the optimized data. A test of hypothesis was conducted to determine if the means (µ) of the two sets of data (optimization and routine)were significantly different from each other using the student t-test statistic. At 95% level of significance, degree of freedom (df) 4, the results revealed that there was no significant difference between the two data sets. The paper concluded with the implications for the study and the need to train both the terminal operators and the ports authority in the use of the optimization techniques for an integrated to tackling port operational challenges.

Keywords : Dry/Liquid Bulk, Cargo Throughput, Guaranteed Minimum Tonnage (GMT), Optimized Cost Projections, Technical Efficiency