Maputo Port invests in payloaders

In what the Maputo Port Development Company (MPDC) describes as “one of the biggest” recent investments in capital equipment, a fleet of 12 new payloaders has been ordered. “Payloaders are our bread and butter machines,” says Gerhard Botha, MPDC chief operations officer. “In the beginning of 2012 we had only a fleet of eight payloaders and two of them were scrapped, leaving us with a balance of six and hence low availability. “With the growth in volume, we always had to hire from local suppliers,”he adds. The new fleet of payloaders is sufficient to meet operational requirements, according to Botha. He is at pains to stress that the authority is investing in payloaders and not cranes as was previously reported in the Mozambican press and picked up by FTW. Two Doosan payloaders arrived in Maputo in December, and the remaining 10 should arrive during February this year, he says. The new machines will allow reduction of the truck turnaround time, improvement of vessel productivity (with no disruption between stockpile and vessel) and also improve stockpile management. “This is one of the biggest investments in equipment replacement in all of MPDC’s history,” says Botha. Additional investment in strategic equipment planned for 2013 includes grabs, conveyor-belt systems, RAM revolver loading systems and forklifts. CAPTION One of the 12 new payloaders acquired for the port of Maputo.