Knowing the terrain provides the edge

Road transport can be
complex enough in Angola
without second or third
parties taking part in a shipment’s
movement like relay racers
exchange a baton. To provide the
door-to-door service preferred by
its customers, veteran Angolan
transporter Castle Transport
has had to anticipate logistics
challenges with on-the-ground
intelligence.
“We handle abnormal loads as
well as project shipments, and
knowing the country’s terrain gives
us an advantage. For instance, we
have taken abnormal loads up the
Liba Pass, which had never been
done before,” said Gerrie Coetzee,
co-owner of the company with
Ronèl Coetzee.
In addition to the famously
difficult Liba Pass, the country’s
regular road system offers extreme
challenges. In its nearly two
decades of operations in Angola,
Castle Transport has found the
value of doing reconnaissance
work, surveying routes to scout out
difficult portions of the Angolan
road infrastructure. They have vast
knowledge of the different routes
and requirements needed to handle
transport in Angola.
“We send up to 35 trucks a week
up into Angola from South Africa.
What we offer our customers is
reliability, with daily satellite
tracking,” said Coetzee.
Maintaining standards and
ensuring reliability is achieved by
knowing road freight challenges in
Angola – which comes from years
of experience and having in place
a complete shipping infrastructure.
Breakbulk cargo is consolidated at
a company warehouse in Gauteng.
Clearing goods into Angola is
another major challenge. Castle
saw this as an opportunity to
offer an extended service to
its customers, dug into this
complicated process and affiliated
itself with a worldwide clearing
company, together offering a
clearing service at the border for
the Castle customer. The customer
now knows in advance what
the clearing costs could be and
Castle oversees and monitors the
completion of the process.
“We oversee projects as cargo
arrives in Durban harbour through
to the Angolan delivery point, and
when required we personally escort
these convoys. We believe in
personal attention and involvement.
Some of our cargo comes from
Mozambique, which means we
travel and clear through five
countries,” said Ronèl Coetzee.
Beyond shipments to Luanda,
Castle services Soyo, Saurimo,
Huambo, Benguela, Lobito,
Lubango and Namibe, but has
been called upon to transport to
other destinations by some major
shippers who know that swift road
transport in the often challenging
conditions of Angola require a firm
that maintains nationwide contacts
and does its homework.