THE Durban Agribulk Terminal, managed by Transnet Port Terminals, said on Thursday that with agricultural bulk commodities like maize, wheat and soya beans re-emerging as a major focus for the Durban Agribulk Terminal, an investment of more than R230 million had seen the acquisition of two ship unloaders.
Assembly was currently in progress with the handover to Operations planned for the end of February 2022.
Kwazi Mabaso, the acting managing executive at the Durban Terminals, said: “Annually, the terminal handles an average of 243 669 metric tons of grains, which are strategic commodities for the terminal. We anticipate volumes to grow with increased players and government’s efforts on growing the agricultural sector”.
Besides grains, the Durban Agribulk Terminal also handles bulk woodchip exports to countries such as China and Japan.
The investment in the ship unloaders followed close on the heels of a R55m investment on the terminal’s substation upgrade and refurbishment of a ship loader aimed at improving equipment availability and operational efficiencies.
“The new equipment puts the terminal in a position to handle additional grain volumes. Each of the new ship unloaders has a design throughput of 600 tons per hour, as compared to the current ageing ship unloaders that have design throughput of 300 tons per hour each,” said Mabaso. | Philippa Larkin