Obsolete cranes provide export bonus

LEONARD NEILL
AS THE outdated and rusty material in the port of Maputo is moved from the quayside to land up in a heap on spare ground in the harbour, Karel Meyer smiles broadly. That’s business, he says.
Meyer, branch manager of ships agents and clearing and forwarding agency Caravelle IDA, has been scooping up a good deal of the obsolete cranes and other steel structures which have been replaced in the harbour’s development programme. His company exports them to scrap metal dealers in the Far East.
“In the month of April alone we loaded 16 000 tons,” he says. There will be more as the port undergoes its three year refurbishment programme - of which one year has been completed.
This has been a side issue to Caravelle’s numerous other export operations, the chief of which is the handling of ferrochrome and a Phalaborwa bi-product, magnetite, which came on stream for export recently.
“We’ve had a good run on ferrochrome,” says Meyer. A total of 350 million tons moved through the port last year. This has been arriving in Ôparcels’ of 3500 tons at a time from Lydenburg.
The magnetite is currently moving in large volumes. The last two vessels loaded 30 000 tons and 40 000 tons of the product.
Caravelle is also the appointed Maputo clearing agent for the Mozal smelter, Maputo’s largest industry. Dry bulk cargo has been the company’s core business in its 16 years of operation, but it has also seen growth in reefer exports.
“Good communications between us and our liaison office at Tall Ships in Durban, as well as our holding company LBH Group in Rotterdam, has assisted in the smooth flow of goods in and out of Maputo,” says Meyer.