The amazing journey of six mill shells to Zambia …

A consignment of six mill shells for a copper mine in Zambia successfully reached its destination last week after a journey lasting months. According to Lampie Grobler, operational manager of Frits Kroon Transport, responsible for the road leg of the six mill shells from the Port of Durban to the mine in Chililabombwe along the Zambian border to the DRC, the entire operation required major administrative planning. Weighing a whopping 268.2 tons and averaging 6.3 metres in width, the mill shells were transported in six trucks that left the Port of Durban on January 30. “It took two weeks to drive to the Beitbridge border post, travelling at a speed of no more than 40km per hour,” said Grobler. “Travelling in convoy, each truck was accompanied by three police vehicles that we had to arrange with each district that we passed through at least 72 hours in advance.” He said any delay resulted in major re-planning and all attempts were made to ensure the process went as smoothly as possible to avoid having to reshuffle plans. “Each police escort had to be arranged a minimum of 72 hours prior to the trucks arriving in their district,” said Grobler. “A lot of planning also went into arranging the various permits for the trucks.” Due to South Africa’s abnormal load regulation, each province in the country requires its own abnormal load permit. That meant Grobler and his team had to obtain permits for each truck in five different provinces. Each truck also had to have a cross-border permit. “In Zimbabwe we had to obtain an abnormal permit for each truck and then again in Zambia we had to get six abnormal permits.” He said travelling in convoy with the extra escort vehicles for each truck was a challenging operation at times - especially along the N3 where at one point there were at least another 17 other abnormal vehicles with their escort vehicles on the road. Following a wait of several days at the Beitbridge border post, the convoy crossed Zimbabwe before entering Zambia at the Chirundu border post.