There appears to be quite a battle brewing between two railways about the land transport of Botswana’s massive untapped coal deposits to their export ports.
The first contender is Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), which has recently completed its pre-feasibility study on the new heavy-haul line that is to provide a new route via Swaziland for general freight – and coal – traffic to Richards Bay as well as Maputo in Mozambique.
However, according to the publication Railways Africa, “moving Botswana’s coal to the sea is also the primary objective of the planned Trans-Kalahari Railway (TKR)”.
It also pointed out that the presidents of both Botswana and Namibia were TKR fans – and had fast-tracked this project.
A possible factor is the expected line capacity, which, said Railways Africa, is an estimated 80 million tonnes of coal per annum by TFR, while TKR’s is 65m tonnes/annum.
But it certainly looks as though both could be gainfully employed, as Botswana has an estimated coal resource of 12 billion tonnes.
