Mining business pumps up the volumes

THRIVING CONSTRUCTION projects springing up across Central and West Africa have commanded increased air and sea freight volumes, happily met by Africa specialists Intraspeed. “We have seen tremendous growth over the last year,” says Claire Clark, sales and marketing director for Intraspeed South Africa. “Our turnover doubled in the first four months of this year and we expect this to continue until December.” Seafreight volumes moving to West Africa - carrying mainly communications equipment - have increased from 150 teus to more than 250 a month. “We have expanded our service range to include crating, bundling and packing of this equipment,” adds Clark. The company is involved in a number of construction projects including various hotels in Zanzibar, Ghana, Seychelles and Rwanda, with experienced project teams travelling with the cargo to these destinations to ensure the smooth handling and movement of cargo from airport to site. “We also moved eight B747/200F charters of prefabricated banking halls to remote areas spread throughout Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Zanzibar,” adds Clark. The mining industry has been an area of remarkable growth for Intraspeed. “Our mining volumes comprised 18% of our airfreight business in March this year, and in July our mining business was close to 50% of our airfreight volumes.” According to Clark the company pioneered the setting up of an airfreight hub in Entebbe, Uganda. “It’s ideal for servicing the remote exploration sites throughout Northern DRC, Tanzania, CAR and Sudan.” It has also been involved in a number of complete site exploration and establishments in Gabon and Southern DRC. Addressing capacity problems, especially to West Africa, Intraspeed has signed block space agreements with various carriers. “We have a similar situation with our cargo into Entebbe. Clearing at this hub is extremely smooth and controlled, taking less than two hours to clear and no more than three hours to load. However, ports in West Africa are extremely congested and clearance and delivery can take as long as seven days. “Africa has its own unique challenges and unless you have proper representation in these areas it’s very difficult to get an honest update on what is transpiring on the ground,” says Clark.