Coal earns more foreign exchange for South Africa than any other commodity. The Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), shown here, operates R7-billion worth of assets at its 2.2-km-long, six-berth, four-shiploader quay. The RBCT’s tipplers are able to offload 100-wagon trains in fewer than two hours. The yard stocks 8.2-million tons of 38 different grades of coal, which a 50 km conveyor network distributes to 92 individual stock areas. Yard machines place the coal into four silos at a rate of 6 000 t/h, prior to loading on ships, which call at a rate of 700-plus a year. The RBCT’s original 75-million-ton 2014 export projection has had to be lowered to 73-million tons because of last month’s nine-day power outage, which was caused by the breakdown of a twin cable-system installed 38 years ago.