# Cotonou (BJ COO)

**UN/LOCODE:** BJ COO  
**Country:** Benin  
**Water Body:** Bight of Benin; Gulf of Guinea; North Atlantic Ocean  
**Harbor Size:** Medium  
**Harbor Type:** Coastal (Breakwater)  
**GPS:** 6.3500, 2.4333

Run by Africa Global Logistics (AGL, formerly Bolloré), the container terminal at Cotonou (BJ COO) anchors one of West Africa's key transit gateways for the landlocked Sahel. The port handles roughly 90 percent of Benin's foreign trade and feeds onward corridors to Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. Container throughput reached about 650,000 TEU recently, and an ongoing expansion is lengthening the quay to around 1,100 metres to lift capacity toward 1 million TEU by 2026. Transit cargo benefits from a free zone aimed chiefly at Niger, plus an inland dry port at Allada some 40 km from the quays. The traffic is volatile, though: Nigeria once supplied around 80 percent of transit volumes, but border closures since 2023 have badly disrupted those flows. Hinterland movement relies mostly on trucking along the north–south corridors, as competitive rail links are largely absent. Shippers seeking alternatives look to Lomé in Togo, with its transshipment terminal, and to Tema (Ghana) and Lagos (Nigeria).

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*Freight Academy — Seaport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/cotonou-port-bj-coo](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/cotonou-port-bj-coo)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/seaports/en/cotonou-port-bj-coo](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/seaports/en/cotonou-port-bj-coo)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/seaports/cotonou-port-bj-coo/llm-summary?lang=en*