Londiwe Buthelezi
TRANSNET Freight Rail (TFR) projects it will grow its market share by 30 percent to 40 percent in certain areas of the country’s logistic chain in the next seven years.
Through a new plan announced by President Zuma in his State of the Nation address on Thursday, to be called the “market demand strategy of Transnet”, the logistics parastatal said it was aiming to be among the top five rail operators in the world.
TFR chief executive Siyabonga Gama said on Friday that the market demand strategy was a step towards indicating future growth.
Zuma said that of the R300 billion to be spent on Transnet’s capital projects in the next seven years, R200bn would be specifically invested in rail infrastructure.
Gama said TFR would make massive investments on a rail line to the Waterberg coalfields, and it aimed to step up its manganese export capacity and rail replacement programmes, among others.
He said the division was on the verge of finalising a national rail plan, informed by customer aspirations and designed to respond to the future needs of the economy.
“The Waterberg line has the potential to unlock a lot of coal from the area. There are companies who have deposits in the area but there are no immediate plans to do anything about them because of water and logistical challenges.
“So there are two things that we can do. We can either do phased expansion. Or we can do a heavy haul line, which links to Ermelo and Richards Bay,” Gama said. “We believe that the Waterberg can carry up to 80 million tons of coal” a year.
He said there was anticipated collaboration with the port of Maputo to be announced by the group chief executive, Brian Molefe, in due course.
As part of its plan to jack up the manganese export channel through the port of Ngqura near Port Elizabeth, TFR envisioned increasing manganese export capacity to 22 million tons by 2025 from 5.5 million tons, Gama said.
“We want the port of Ngqura to become the regional pivotal port. As a deep water and industrial port, it needs a heavy haul capability to link it with the inland.”
Gama added that the rail link between Lothair in Mpumalanga and Swaziland, which was set to boost South Africa’s coal exports, would carry some general freight and help to export more coal through Richards Bay.
There were rail replacement programmes planned as well, to sustain export capacity.
The country had about 3 000km of disused railway lines, Gama said, and some of the used lines were underutilised.
He said single rail lines would be upgraded to double lines and additional channels. TFR was also working on replacing locomotives and wagons for its rolling stock.
“Our supply chain needs to be competitive so that local companies become competitive in other markets, and so that mining companies can invest in expanding their mines and those who got their new mining licences can begin putting them to use.”
Gama said the road-to-rail project had been sluggish because of the underinvestment in rail infrastructure over the past 20 years.
“The company (Transnet) had a history of burdensome pension fund deficits and during the period of resolving that, there was no investment in railways. The average age of our locomotives is 37 years while that of our peers is 12 years.”
The demand for rail services far exceeded supply capacity, Gama said, which made the delays in the road-to-rail transition problematic.
“People think because of the problems in general freight everything in railways is broken, but that’s not true. In fact, we are doing very well on the coal and iron ore lines,” he said.
Rail succession in the early 1990s sought to shrink rail usage but Transnet wanted to prove that rail could handle more, Gama said, adding that the division had managed to build its share of the containers market from 13 percent five years ago to 33 percent.