JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) − State-owned logistics group Transnet expects a feasibility study, which explores the possibility of building a new railway line through Swaziland to Richards Bay, to be ready by the end of October, a company official said on Wednesday.

Divyesh Kalan, the general manager of Transnet’s coal division, told delegates at the Coaltrans conference in Johannesburg that the new line would free up capacity on the Richards Bay line, by moving general freight off the line.

Transnet supplied about 63-million tons of coal to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) last year, which was almost 30-million tons below the terminal’s export capacity of 91-million tons.

RBCT expects its 2011 volumes to be in line with the 63.4-million tons exported last year, as rail bottlenecks continued, CEO Raymond Chirwa said on Tuesday, but Kalan said that Transnet still expected to rail 70-million tons of export coal to port in the 2011/12 financial year.

Transnet Freight Rail aims to increase its coal line rail capacity to 81-million tons and Kalan said that it was on track to achieve that capacity by 2015.

Meanwhile, he said that Transnet would call on the private sector to join it in rolling out infrastructure to improve efficiencies and increase supply around South Africa’s export corridors.

Transnet was in the process of determining what investment would be needed to better supply export corridors over the next 30 years. It has already completed a fact base study investigating investment needs and was now in the process of developing strategic options to fund and construct additional rail infrastructure.

The plan for longer-term investment mainly focuses on the Richards Bay and Maputo corridors. Kalan noted that the fact base study also included plans to connect the Waterberg, which has been identified as South Africa’s next big coal area, to these corridors over the next five to ten years.

 

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