Mozambique approves terms for port and railway project

The Mozambican government has approved the terms under which a new port at Macuse on the coast of the central province of Zambezia, and a railway linking Macuse to the Moatize coal basin in Tete province, will be leased to a private operator from Thailand, reports news agency, AIM. This operator has been chosen after Thai group Italthai Engineering won an international tender launched earlier this year. The document approved at a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), “establishes a legal basis that allows the concession to a private operator of the construction, operation, maintenance and management of the Moatize-Macuse railway and the commercial operation of the freight and passenger rail transport service”. The Moatize-Macuse railway will be 525 kilometres long and building it will cost about US$3.5 billion. Macuse port and railway are of vital importance as an alternative route to the sea for coal exports from Moatize. Currently, coal companies depend on the Sena railway from Moatize to the port of Beira which can currently handle no more than 6.5 million tonnes a year. But the projection for coal exports is they could reach 100 million tonnes a year by 2025. Work is under way to upgrade the Sena Line to increase its capacity, and improvements should increase the average speed at which trains can travel along the line. According to the Transport Ministry, by the time the work is finished in late 2015 the Sena line will be able to carry 20 million tonnes.