[miningmx.com] – MOZAMBIQUE has rejected an environmental plan
submitted last year by Riversdale, now owned by Rio Tinto, for moving coal via
barges down the Zambezi river, its transport minister said.
Mozambique’s woeful infrastructure poses the biggest challenge for miners who have
invested in the Tete province, which is estimated to hold one of the world’s biggest
reserves of coking coal, yet who lack options for getting their product to the port.
Riversdale had proposed to initially move 2 million tonnes of coal per year via barges
to the port at Beira and build that up to around 12 million tonnes.
“The impact was seen to be very negative, and there were no plans for mitigation. As
proposed it is not doable,” Minister Paulo Zucula told Reuters in a phone interview.
“The Zambezi river … every four years we have problems with flooding and killing
people. So if you’re going to dredge the river, expand the banks, we will be in
trouble,” he said.
The barges were also expected to affect the local fish population, he added.
Rio Tinto declined to comment.
Zucula said the company was welcome to resubmit its study, although he stressed
that Mozambique would much prefer that companies opt to move their coal by rail.
“If you compare the two in terms of environment, the difference is huge,” he said.
Current rail infrastructure is limited to a capacity of 6 million tonnes on the Sena
railway line linking Tete with Beira, but Mozambique has plans to expand the Sena
line and build and upgrade other rail lines and ports in the country.
“We can assure everybody that we will build enough rail capacity to carry their coal.
The problem is timing,” Zucula said.
“We are working at high speed to get financing. By the end of this year we will reach
10 million tonnes of capacity on the Sena line; next year we will start rehabilitating
Nacala (port) and build two new railways.”
He said it was as much a priority for Mozambique as it was for the miners to get the
rail lines and ports built.
“Coal is a development project for us, so we are a most interested party. The planning
of infrastructure and the mine plans do not match yet, but we are making every effort
to make it match,” he said.
Mozambique is planning to establish a framework for how infrastructure projects are
planned and who will benefit to ensure all the projects expected to come online in
coming years will get access to ports and rail.
For now miners without capacity on the Sena line may have to rely on trucks to get
their product to port and need to plan the ramp-up of their mines in line with available
facilities.
So far Brazil’s Vale is the only miner exporting coal from Mozambique. The miner has
said it will invest $4.4bn to build a coal terminal at the deep-water port at Nacala and
a rail line via Malawi to link Nacala with its mines.
