Ship turnaround times increased by 8% in Cape Town and 4% in Ngqura, compared to 2016, while Port Elizabeth (-8%), East London (-24%) and Richard’s Bay (-18%) improved turnaround times significantly. This is according to Transnet, which presented its financial year-end results – which saw revenue increase by 5.3% to R65.5bn – for the year ended 31 March 2017 in Johannesburg on Monday morning (July 3). Train turnaround times meanwhile rose 32% at Durban Pier 2, while container moves dropped 15% at Durban Pier 1 and 12% at Durban Pier 2. Despite this, Siyabonga Gama, Transnet Group chief
executive, said Transnet had made a number of performance improvements during the financial year. He said the state-owned company had issues with the maintenance of straddle carriers. “We are refurbishing those and are beginning to make sure we do straddle pulling, especially at the Durban North quay to improve the usage of this equipment. We are upskilling our people and retraining operators so that we can maintain and exceed world-class port norms in terms of crane moves per hour.” Transnet’s export iron ore line decreased to 57.2 million tonnes from 58 million tonnes the year earlier. “We have improved locomotive supply and deployment on the coal line. We’re very happy that on-time arrivals improved by 142%, and on-time departures improved by 7.8%.” Transnet’s general freight volumes improved to 88.1 million tonnes, up 4.9%. “This begins to indicate that despite GDP growth of 0.7%, the road to rail strategy is working,” said Gama. “Despite market conditions, we have had some very good uptake in terms of the general freight, automotive and container sectors.”
Transnet Group CEO, Siyabonga Gama.
