Phase 1 of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) yard machine upgrade, in KwaZulu-Natal, will be completed in February 2018, says engineering and infrastructure advisory services company Aurecon.

After almost 40 years of service, two rail-mounted stacker reclaimers and two ship loaders at RBCT are reaching the end of their design life, and are in the process of being replaced. The project, which started in 2014, is on schedule, with the construction of the new yard equipment experiencing almost no setbacks typically associated with the fabrication and transportation of large machinery.

“Yard equipment, like ship loaders and stacker reclaimers, is designed to work for a particular design life; steel structures can only last a certain amount of time due to fatigue, which means that end-of-life steel structures can undergo catastrophic failure, owing to the steel giving way under load,” Aurecon technical director and RBCT project manager Michael J Vincent explains.

The current yard equipment was designed to process around 6 000 t/h. The new machines will be designed to use the existing rail infrastructure on site. The replacement equipment is proposed to deliver twice the production rate of around 12 000 t/h. This will require precise and detailed engineering to ensure the existing infrastructure is not overloaded. As a result, this has increased the complexity of the engineering required from engineering company Sandvik, which was awarded the contract to build the new stacker reclaimers and ship loaders in March 2015, following a tender process evaluated by Aurecon, notes Vincent.

RBCT CEO Alan Waller explains that RBCT’s export target for 2017 is 77-million tonnes, which will be an increase on the 75.4-million tonnes exported in 2015 and the 72.5-million tonnes dispatched last year.

“The terminal averaged 76 vessels a month in 2016, peaking at 95 vessels in November when it pulled out all the stops to despatch the record eight-million tonnes,” Waller points out.

Sandvik is responsible for the design of the stacker reclaimers and ship loaders and, therefore, carries the full responsibility for the quality of their performance once they have been installed and commissioned.

The three-year contract includes a design phase, which will take one-and-a-half years to complete, while fabrication of the machines will start about six months into the contract, with different components manufactured at various facilities located worldwide.

China will be responsible for supplying 70% of the machines’ components, Europe 10% and South Africa 20%. Waller says the upgrades will cost R1.4-billion and have been proceeding on schedule for the February 2018 deadline.

Vincent points out that there will be some challenges in the decommissioning of the old machines such as finding the appropriate space required and, likewise, the space to isolate the construction of the new machines from the existing port operations. “The decommissioning of the existing yard machines will be done at the completion of the commissioning of the new equipment,” he adds.

Aurecon was appointed in 2012 for the initial project setup, including specifications, tender documents and evaluation, and then further appointed as the engineer for the RBCT upgrade under a Federation of Consulting Engineers contract in 2015, which requires it to manage the contractors and ensure that they meet the requirements set out in RBCT’s contract with Sandvik. As the project manager, Aurecon manages time, cost and quality to see that the project comes to fruition.

Vincent explains that Aurecon has provided services to RBCT for some time and is well placed to manage this project as the engineer, as it has delivered similar projects around the world, including in Australia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Indonesia, over the past 30 years.