TRANSNET, South Africa’s government-owned freight and logistics utility, today unveiled a major unlock of rail capacity that will enable the country’s chrome industry to export an additional 800,000 tons in metal a year.
This will be achieved following an agreement with Mozambique’s rail authority CFM enabling trains to run uninterrupted from Belfast in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province to Maputo port.
The new model will see consignments of 50 chrome and ferrochrome wagon loads hauled by two diesel locomotives from Belfast to Maputo using a single crew. This compares to the current model in which five crews are employed to account for multiple locomotive changes.
“The new model does not require the exchange of locomotives and will thus reduce the transit time by 12 hours and improve efficiency and crew requirements,” said Transnet.
The outcome is that trains will be increased to 21 per week from the current 15 each week, equal to a volume increase of more than 800,000 tons of chrome annually.
“We expect that this will significantly reduce the number of chrome and ferrochrome trucks on the road en route from South Africa to the Maputo Port of Mozambique,” said Transnet. It is estimated that the increased volume by rail will remove in the region of 200 trucks per week.
“Rail transport is critical in bolstering economic development and this initiative will enable both railways to support the recovery of the region by connecting Africa to the world,” said Sizakele Mzimela, CEO of Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), a business unit of Transnet.
The agreement with CFM is an example of much needed debottlenecking on TFR’s network which has seen enormous opportunity cost, especially in the coal export industry where seaborne prices have massively appreciated.
Exxaro Resources said earlier this week that total exports of coal this year could be 18% less than guided. About 1.4 million tons (Mt) of thermal coal exports were at risk in terms of its previously guided 7.6Mt in sales target for the 2022 financial year, it said.
Exxaro said that TFR had railed 24Mt to Richards Bay Coal Terminal for the five months ended May equivalent to an annualised rate of 54Mt. Railing last year of export coal totalled about 60Mt – well below the coal line’s 80Mt/y capacity.
Exxaro said performance lapses were to be seen at its mines. “The performance from Grootegeluk has declined from an average of five trains per week in 2021 to four trains per week year-to-date in 200,” Exxaro said of its flagship mine situated in South Africa’s Limpopo province.
“The Mpumalanga export rail performance declined from 15 trains per week in 2021 to eight trains per week year-to-date in 2022.” Exxaro said that it continue to “engage” with Transnet in order to mitigate the export channel problems.
