State-owned power utility Eskom continues to press ahead with its integrated logistics strategy to prioritise the use of conveyors and rail to reduce the number of trucks that are required to transport coal to power stations, says Eskom road logistics head Nico Singh.

However, he notes that there will always be an element of road haulage use for Eskom as it provides the company’s supply chain with flexibility.

About 60% of the more than 120-million tons of coal Eskom receives each year is transported using conveyor systems, 30% is received through the use of road haulage and the remaining 10% is transported by rail.

Singh points out, however, that Eskom intends to significantly increase the percentage of rail transportation use over the next five to ten years as part of its road-to-rail strategy.

He explains that the road-to-rail migration strategy is a “national strategic imperative” for several reasons.

These include, from a social perspective, the need to significantly reduce fatalities, as a result of coal transportation by road, reduce damage and congestion on limited road infrastructure and minimise the negative health impact of coal haulage on towns and communities near coal mining centres.

Economic advantages of the strategy include reduced coal transportation costs, which will enable the optimisation of electricity tariffs, boosting the South African economy through significant rail infrastructure upgrade programmes, which will also create thousands of new job opportunities in the process.

Additionally, from an environmental viewpoint, the strategy will help to reduce carbon emissions, as well as Eskom’s overall operational carbon footprint, and eradicate spillages and illegal dumping of coal by hauliers.

“It is estimated that road externalities are costing the South African economy R34-billion a year,” Singh points out.

Eskom Coal Road Haulage Overview

Eskom transports coal in Mpumalanga over a road network of about 3 200 km using a fleet of more than 2 000 trucks.

The average distance travelled by these coal transportation trucks is 600 000 km/day and about 124 Kt of coal is moved on South Africa’s roads each day through a network of 30 to 40 haulage routes.

Eskom has 58 transport contracts in place with logistics companies to transport coal from mines to its power stations.

Singh states that the single biggest challenge for road coal transport is the increased operator and public safety risk.

“Coal road transport shares the road infrastructure with the general population, and coal road transport has a higher risk of accidents than other forms of transport. This risk increases exponentially as the vehicle numbers increase,” he notes.

Further, Singh points out that there is a direct correlation between road conditions and vehicle operating costs.

“There is also a backlog of road maintenance on national and provincial roads, which can partly be attributed to budget inadequacy but exacerbated by increased heavy haul road transportation and overloading,” he says, adding that the varying degree of performance levels of many transporters and mines is also a challenge Eskom faces from a coal logistics perspective.

Singh was addressing black-owned training and conferencing company Intelligence Transfer Centre’s second yearly Coal Transportation Africa summit, held in Johannesburg, in May.