Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) has confirmed that a damaged conveyor belt used for moving bulk freight at the Port of Richards Bay should be back in operation by December, raising hopes of faster throughput at one of the world’s busiest coal export terminals.
TPT said: “The managing executive of Richards Bay Terminals, Thulasizwe Dlamini, has recently conducted an inspection to ascertain the progress being made at a workshop of the service provider where the infrastructure of the belt is being assembled.”
Civil engineering work expected to commence next week has been described as a “giant leap forward in this much-needed repair work”.
News of the conveyor belt coincides with a decision taken by the City of uMhlatuze to recruit police reservists to help with extreme road congestion caused by tipper trucks bottlenecking into the port.
The decision was taken due to a shortage of traffic officers to deal with the build-up of heavy-haul vehicles on the N2 and roads towards the port – a snarl-up situation that began developing after the first conveyor belt fire in October 2021.
Although that fire was said to be sabotage-related, the most recent fire, also in the month of October, resulted from a blaze that erupted in a wood chip mill run by forestry company, NCT.
Large-scale equipment setbacks at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, where five out of seven conveyor belts were affected by last month’s wood chip fire, are only part of the problem.
Cable theft on the North Corridor bulk rail line from Ermelo has consistently hampered attempts to restore Transnet Freight Rail’s services to the port, leading to an increase in tippers cramming into Richards Bay.
In its latest statement about the coal-by-road chaos, TPT said about 9 000 trucks were shuttling coal towards the port.
“We are very confident that once the belt is in full operation, we will be able to take these trucks off the road,” the ports operator said.
As for repair work to other conveyor belts that remain damaged, TPT said: “Supply chain processes are at an advanced stage to have two conveyor belts repaired.
“We are expecting them to be commissioned mid-next year.”
Transnet said it was confident that December’s commissioning of the repaired conveyor belt by December, as planned, and next year’s repairs, would help the state-owned logistics utility’s turnaround plan bear fruit.
