The increasing need for Africa's minerals, oil, and gas is causing the logistics industry to grow across the continent.Kris van Heerden, general manager of DSV South Africa for air and sea operations, told Freight News that the extraction of resources like copper, platinum, lithium, and oil and gas was significantly boosting the need for logistics services. This, in turn, is opening up economic opportunities for Africa's 1.3 billion people.Van Heerden cites Zambia as an example, where around $5 billion has been committed to the expansion of four mines. There are developments in other parts of Africa too, including Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Namibia and Zimbabwe, where lithium mining is on the increase. The expansion of a copper mine in the DRC will result in it becoming one of the world’s largest producing copper mines.“The world needs copper and cobalt for cell phones, televisions and semiconductors for motor vehicles, and other minerals which Africa is rich in, but while the opportunity is there, the main challenges are around actually moving cargo through countries,” said Van Heerden. Challenges include customs and border differences from country to country which can lead to delays at border posts. At a particularly bad border crossing it is not uncommon to find a queue of up to 50-70km of vehicles waiting to enter a mid-continent state.The state of roads is another challenge, and many are single track which does not make for efficient logistics. Travelling through rural villages is also challenging for drivers as pedestrian behaviour can be unpredictable.Much of the continent’s rail network is in disuse or poor condition, and this is an impediment to the f low of goods as it creates more pressure on an already struggling road network.“All the issues make for longer travel time – for example, a seven to 10-day trip can easily stretch to eight weeks and more, and this creates issues for time, cost, vehicle availability, and of course driver hygiene and safety. Drivers need to rest to be alert to both dangers on the road and customs/border requirements,” said Van Heerden.All this means documentation preparation is critical as is pre-planning every element of the journey.“Public-private partnerships always present opportunities, and DSV’s announcement recently that it has established a $10-billion logistics joint venture with NEOM in Saudi Arabia is a significant example of how economic growth can be driven,” said Van Heerden. This project will see DSV provide a full suite of ground, sea and air logistics services to Saudi Arabia’s planned futuristic urban development project.Van Heerden said Africa remained a key region for DSV which works in sectors that are key economic drivers of the continent, including oil and gas, mining, power and energy, high-value chain, healthcare, retail and automotive.
