The rail freight division of South Africa’s state-owned logistics company has received private-sector confirmation of improved capacity at the Port of Richards Bay (PoRB), which was received with a measure of skepticism at a port managers’ media briefing last week.
Petrochemicals manufacturer, Sasol, has said its latest financial year-end results show that export sales have increased 5% year-on-year (y-o-y).
Apart from improved service delivery, Sasol also cited increased production at its Thubelisha colliery in Secunda as a contributor to better y-o-y results.
In addition to Sasol’s confirmation of improved service delivery by Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), South Africa’s largest iron-ore producer, Kumba, said it had started seeing stepped-up performance by TFR in the second quarter of this year.
At last week’s media briefing, Transnet National Ports Authority’s operations manager for Richards Bay, Sipho Ntshangase, said the restoration and re-implementation of Grindrod’s back-of-port conveyor belt has helped ore throughput at the port.
He said more improved throughput is expected towards the end of the year when two more conveyor belts are expected to commence with operation.
Through ongoing ramped-up volume capacity by TFR, in tandem with continuous port infrastructure progress, bulk-load exports through Richards Bay are projected to result in reduced ore-truck traffic on the N2 from Mpumalanga’s coal basin to the port.
