Mozambique has taken another step to fulfil the objective of providing comprehensive railway links between the country’s rich coalfields in its inland Tete province and harbours on the coast from which the coal can be exported.

Zambezi Integrated Development Corridor (acronymned in Portuguese to Codiza) CEO Abdul Carimo last week announced that Portuguese civil engineering and construction group Mota-Engil had been selected to build a railway line from the Moatize district of Tete to the coastal town of Macuse, in Zambézia province. He divulged this information to Radio Mozambique, in the city of Quelimane (which is the capital of Zambézia).

The only remaining steps, he said, is for Codiza and the company to sign the adjudication contract, and for the cost of the project to be fixed at $2.3-billion. Once these have been done, Mota-Engil could start work. The Mozambique News Agency reported that, apart from the Portuguese enterprise, six international groups had shown interest in the project. One had been from Brazil, two from China, one from South Korea and two from Turkey. Subsequently, the Brazilian competitor was identified as Andrade Gutierrez, the South Korean bidder as GS, the Chinese competitors as the China Harbour Engineering Company and the China Railway Construction Corporation, while one of the Turkish bidders was reported to be Yapi.

A few days later, the executive president of the company Thai Moçambique Logística (TML), José Pires da Fonseca, gave more details about the project to the Portuguese weekly Expresso. The line will be built by a consortium composed of Mota-Engil and the China Civil Engineering Construction company. He confirmed that the value of the project was $2.3-billion and pointed out that it had been “won in a competition by the first Luso-Chinese consortium formed to undertake an international development”. He further told the weekly that the construction of the new railway would take 36 months and that it will start operating in 2021.

According to Carimo, the Macuse line is expected to focus on the transport of thermal coal from the Moatize district to the coast, with the larger quantities of metallurgical or coking coal produced by the mines in the district being carried by the pre-existing Sena (to Beira) and recently commissioned Nacala lines. In particular, the project seems to be aimed at facilitating the export of thermal coal to India. Last year, Carimo stated that the new railway would transport coal produced by four Indian companies with licences to mine coal in Tete. Pires da Fonseca elaborated that the line would carry metallurgical coal destined for clients in China, India and Japan and thermal coal for customers in China, India and Thailand.

The line between Moatize and Macuse will be between 480 km and 500 km in length. It was reported in late 2015 that, once completed, the railway would have a capacity of 100-million tons a year (Mt/y) of coal.

At Macuse, which lies north of Quelimane, a deep-water port will be constructed which will be able to take ships of 80 000 t, larger than any that can use Beira. This new port will have an initial capacity of 30-Mt/y of coal, rising to 100-Mt/y with the completion of Phase IV of the harbour project.