
INTERNATIONAL - A plan to develop a $2.8 billion railway and port to ferry coal in Mozambique may collapse because miners are balking, according to the man trying to build it.
Failing to get the project off the ground would deprive the southern African country of a source of revenue it’s come to rely on as it develops world-class natural-gas deposits and struggles to get donor support after disclosing previously hidden debt. Coal is Mozambique’s biggest export.
Thai Mocambique Logistica SA, the project organizer, needs to secure financing next year in order to meet a deadline for the first trains to start rolling to the Indian Ocean by 2023, said Managing Director Jose Fonseca. He’s yet to get India’s International Coal Ventures Ltd. and Brisbane-based Talbot Group Investments Ltd., which own mines in the country, to commit to using the line.