🇧🇯 Benin
South Atlantic · Container Terminal
Cotonou in Benin connects the major commodity exporters of West Africa and South America with global markets, carrying crude oil, iron ore, soybeans, coal, and containerised goods. The Gulf of Guinea has surpassed the Gulf of Aden as the world's most active piracy zone, accounting for the majority of global incidents and the vast majority of crew kidnappings. Unlike Somali piracy's hijacking-for-ransom model, Gulf of Guinea attacks typically aim at kidnap-for-ransom, cargo theft, and oil theft from tankers. The diversion of container traffic around the Cape of Good Hope due to Red Sea security threats has increased congestion at South Atlantic bunkering ports and along the South African coast.
Routed sea distances from Cotonou to the principal global hubs, computed by ArcNautical's routing engine — around land and through the canals a ship actually uses, not great-circle.
No port-call data observed at Cotonou in the last 180 days. This reflects the reach of the terrestrial AIS network behind this page — coverage is densest in Northwest Europe and thins elsewhere — and is not a statement about traffic at Cotonou.
Cotonou falls under the Abuja MoU. The Abuja Memorandum of Understanding (West & Central Africa) publishes PSC detention data via OpenSanctions. Across the last 24 months, the Abuja MoU detention dataset records 207 distinct vessel detentions (as of 2026-08-02). Vessel-level detention probability is computed by ArcNautical using flag performance, vessel age, deficiency history, and ownership opacity.
Plan and score a voyage from Cotonou using 10 intelligence signals. Get composite risk scores, route-level threat exposure, sanctions screening, and fuel/CII estimates.
Open Voyage Scorer