adminIN more than 40 years driving trains in South Africa, Jacobus Cornelius van der Merwe has never seen anything like the Shongololo.
The train, whose name means millipede in Zulu, carries 200 coal wagons, is as long as eight Eiffel Towers laid end-to-end and can haul 16,800 metric tonnes of coal at 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour non-stop to the country’s main export port.
“It’s a massive improvement,” Van der Merwe, 59, said of 580-kilometre journeys from mines in Mpumalanga southeast to Richards Bay Coal Terminal on the coast, without having to change locomotives because some lines use alternating current and some direct. About 110 dual-powered trains made by Toshiba Corp been put in service since 2009, while diesel locomotives on the coal route will be replaced with General Electric Co (GE) models. The Shongololo is part of a 201 billion-rand ($18,8 billion) rail overhaul and expansion plan aimed at boosting exports of coal, manganese and other commodities from Africa’s biggest economy. It’s being rolled out by Transnet SOC Limited, the state-owned ports and rail operator, tapping the expertise of GE, Bombardier Inc, CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotives Company and China CNR Corp to manufacture the locomotives locally and increase freight capacity.
While South Africa is the world’s sixth-largest coal exporter, the country hosts the biggest single-site terminal for the fuel. The Richards Bay Coal Terminal, located on the northeastern coast of the country, has yet to match its annual capacity of 91 million tonnes because it says the coal couldn’t get there.
Commodities exports from South Africa rose 5,6 percent to 384 billion rand in 2013, according to data from the country’s Department of Mineral Resources, and the investment is a bet on further growth. The nation shipped 75 percent of its coal exports to Asia and 21 percent to Europe in 2013, according to data from the terminal’s website. A drop in coal demand may slow the expansion plans with companies shipping less.
“The problem with infrastructure is if you are in the middle of building the railway you can’t just stop,” Ntlai Mosiah, head of power and infrastructure and client coverage in South Africa at Standard Bank Group Limited, said in a March 3 interview.
Most of South Africa’s coal is mined in Mpumalanga province, about 300 kilometres east of Johannesburg, by companies including BHP Billiton Ltd (BHP) and Glencore Xstrata Plc (GLEN). Before the Shongololo, trains had to stop at Ermelo, the country’s biggest rail hub for coal, switching between direct current and alternating current locomotives to continue the journey to the port. Ermelo handles about 7,000 jumbo wagons a day, according to Transnet.
The currents are different because Mpumalanga, home to the country’s richest coal mines, is located in the northern region formerly known as Transvaal, where the Afrikaners who settled there used a different current than what was developed in Richards Bay under a British colonial influence.
Transnet’s upgrades have already shown results, delivering 6,9 million tonnes of coal to the terminal in August, the best month in two years. The terminal shipped about 70 million tonnes of coal last year, a record. The addition of jumbo wagons “be will be a boost,” Nosipho Siwisa-Damasane, chief executive officer of the coal terminal, said in an interview yesterday. “It will be a big one. It’s already working for us. We still have a small portion of smaller trains. But they are exiting.”
Transnet awarded a 2,6 billion-rand contract to China’s CSR Zhuzhou (3898) for 95 locomotives, 85 of which will be built at Transnet Engineering’s unit in Pretoria, the capital. The Chinese locomotives will mostly be used to haul manganese, South Africa’s seventh-biggest commodity export, from Postmasburg in the Northern Cape province to Port Elizabeth and the planned Ngqura terminal, both on the southern coast, helping to boost exports to a potential 16 million tonnes over the next six years from 5,5 million tonnes, according to the company.
“The Chinese are amazing,” Brian Molefe, CEO of Transnet, said in an interview in Johannesburg in February. “They showed us these excellent locomotives. They could deliver about 14 months before everyone.”
Transnet is improving more than 20,000 kilometres of track, a project that includes replacing wooden ties with concrete ones along the rail lines. This will let the Shongololo, which carries eight AC/DC locomotives and 200 jumbo wagons stretching 2,5 kilometres, shave the journey to Richards Bay to eight hours from 10. – Bloomberg
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